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A^ N '. , '■^ 



MEDIEVAL INDIA 

UNDER 

MOHAMMEDAN RULE 



I 



/ 




" **B'J-. .-!•*.?"« -If 










FOUR EMPERORS : BABAR, HUMAYUN, AKBAR, AND JAHANGIR. 



THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 



MEDIEVAL INDIA 

UNDER 

MOHAMMEDAN RULE 

712-1764 



BY 

STANLEY LANE-POOLE 

M.A., LITT.D., M.R.I.A. 

PROFESSOR OF ARABIC AT TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN 



NEW YORK 
G. p. PUTNAM'S SONS 

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN 
1903 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 


Two Copies 


Received 


JAN 24 


1903 


Y Copyright 


Entry 


oLass <^ 


XXc. No. 


COPY 




B. 



Copyright, 1903 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
"Entered at Stationer's Hall, London 

BY 

T. FISHER UNWIN 



Published, February, 1903 



tCbe "fftnicfterbocfter press, Iftew IBorfe 



PREFACE 



THE Mediaeval Period of-:Indian history, though 
it does not exactly correspond with the Middle 
Age of Europe, is not less clearly defined. It begins 
when the immemorial systems, rule, and customs of 
Ancient India were invaded, subdued, and modified 
by a succession of foreign conquerors who imposed 
a new rule and introduced an exotic creed, strange 
languages and a foreign art. These conquerors were 
Muslims, and with the arrival of the Turks under 
Mahmud the Iconoclast at the beginning of the 
eleventh century, India entered upon her Middle 
Age. From that epoch for nearly eight hundred 
years her history is grouped round the Moham- 
medan rulers who gradually brought under their 
control nearly the whole country from the Hima- 
layas to the Krishna river. The Period ends when 
one of the last of these rulers, oppressed by the 
revival of Hindu ascendency, placed himself under 
English protection, and Modern India came into 
being. 

Distinct and clearly marked as the Mediaeval or 
Mohammedan Period is, the transition implies no 
violent change. History is always continuous ; there 



HI 



iv PR Eg A CE 

can be no * fresh start * ; and each new period carries 
on much of what preceded it. In India, as ever in 
the East, change is so gradual as to be almost im- 
perceptible. Ancient India was too deeply rooted 
in its traditions to wither even under the storm of 
Muslim conquest. The old Indian life survived the 
shock of the new ideas, which it modified at least as 
much as it was modified ; it outlived the Muslim 
Period, and still endures, but little altered, in the 
Modern Age of English domination. It never 
really assimilated the foreigners or their ideas. 
Despite the efforts of a few wide-seeing men like 
Akbar, no true or permanent union, except occa- 
sionally among the official and ruling classes, ever 
took place between the Muslims and the Hindus ; 
and the ascendant races, whether Turks, Persians, 
Afghans, or Moghuls, remained essentially an army 
of occupation among a hostile or at least repellent 
population. 

The history of the Mohammedan Period is there- 
fore necessarily more a chronicle of kings and courts 
and conquests than of organic or national growth. 
The vast mass of the people enjoy the doubtful 
happiness of having no history, since they show no 
development ; apparently they are the same yester- 
day, to-day, and forever. Nor was there any such 
marked change even in the principles and methods 
of government as might be expected from the 
diversity of successive rulers of various races. 
English Collector-Magistrates follow much the same 
system, in essential outline, as that which Akbar 
adopted from his Hindu Chancellor, and many 



PREFACE V 

executive details and most of the principles of local 
administration have their origin in probably prehis- 
toric custom. But in the character and life of the 
rulers there is infinite variety, and it is round the 
lives of great men — and a few great women, though 
such seldom emerge before the public gaze in the 
East — that the chief interest of the Mediaeval 
Period centres. A history of 'the people ' is usually 
assumed, in the present day, to be more stimulating 
and instructive than the record of kings and courts ; 
but even if true, this can only be understood of 
Western peoples, of peoples who strive to go for- 
ward — or at least change. In the East the people 
does not change, and there, far more than among 
progressive races, the 'simple annals of the poor,* 
however moving and pathetic, are indescribably trite 
and monotonous compared with the lives of those 
more fortunate to whom much has been given in 
opportunity, wealth, power, and knowledge. Such 
contrasted characters as those of Ala-ad-din, Mo- 
hammad Taghlak, Babar, Akbar, and Aurangzib — 
it is a pity their names are so outlandish — may rival 
any portrait gallery that could be collected in Europe 
in the same four centuries ; and in the lives and 
policies, the wars and studies, the habits and cere- 
monies of such leaders the imagination finds ample 
scope for the realization of strangely vivid and dra- 
matic situations. 

To realize Mediaeval India there is no better way 
than to dive into the eight volumes of the price- 
less ' History of India as told by its own Histo- 
rians * which Sir H. M. Elliot conceived and began 



vi PREFACE 

and which Professor Dowson edited and completed 
with infinite labour and learning. It is a revelation 
of Indian life as seen through the eyes of the 
Persian court annalists. It is, however, a mine to 
be worked, not a consecutive history, and its wide 
leaps in chronology, its repetitions, recurrences, 
and omissions, render it no easy guide for general 
readers. As a source it is invaluable, and the 
present book owes an immense debt to it ; indeed, 
no modern historian of India can afford to neglect 
it. The well-known and remarkably accurate and 
judicious ' History ' by Elphinstone of course had 
not the advantage of the numerous materials 
brought together by Elliot and Dowson ; but El- 
phinstone had good authorities and used them with 
discrimination, and one still turns to him with 
profit. Another modern work of the highest au- 
thority, full of ripe learning, fine judgment, and 
nervous English, is Erskine's ' History of India 
under Babar and Humayun': it is no light loss 
that the author's death cut short a work planned 
on such noble lines. Among recent books I have 
found my friend Mr. H. G. Keene's ' Sketch of 
the History of Hindustan,' and his other volumes, 
the most suggestive ; Thomas's * Chronicles of the 
Pathan Kings,' the ' Memoirs of the Archaeological 
Survey of India,' Professor Blochmann and Colonel 
H. S. Jarrett's notes to their translation of the 
' Ain-i-Akbari ' of Abu-1-Fazl, Mr. Sewell's ' Vijay- 
anagar,' and Mr. E. Denison Ross's translation of 
Haidar's ' Tarikh-i-Rashidi,' have naturally been of 
great service; but to enumerate the works that 



PREFA CE Vll 

must be consulted by an historian of India would 
be almost to publish a catalogue of an Indian 
library. For the chapters on the emperors Babar 
and Aurangzib I have naturally drawn largely from 
my own two volumes in the ' Rulers of India ' 
series, with the permission of the Delegates of the 
Oxford University Press ; and I have also been 
allowed to reprint from the ' Quarterly Review * 
some pages on mediaeval travellers at the court of 
the Great Moghul. My thanks are also due to my 
friend Mr. Arthur Ransom for his kind assistance 
in certain details. 

In the matter of the orthography of Indian names 
I have attempted a compromise. Nothing can 
make these names familiar or pronounceable to the 
average reader, and the more they are adorned 
with accents and diacritical dots the less beautiful 
they appear. I have therefore left the names as 
plain and simple as possible. The reader should 
remember that the vowels are to be pronounced as 
in Italian, not as in English, and that short a in 
Indian names is sounded obscurely (as in ^bout). 

The Chronological Tables at the end of the vol- 
ume will supply what is omitted in a necessarily 
concise narrative, where general outline is more 
important than dynastic or genealogical details. 

Stanley Lane-Poole. 

Note. — As the reader may wish to consult the works of European 
travellers in India, to whom frequent reference is made in the later 
chapters of this history, the following list of the best English editions 
will be useful : 

1608-161 1. The Voyage of Francois Pyrard of Laval to the East 



VI ii PREFACE 

Indies^ etc. Translated and edited by Albert Gray, assisted by H. 
C. P. Bell, Ceylon C.S. Two vols, in three. Hakluyt Society, 
1887-1890. 

1608-1613. Captain William Hawkins, his Relations of the Oc- 
currents which happened in the time of his 7-esidence in India, in the 
county [sic] of the Great Mogoll^ etc. The Hawkins' Voyages, 
edited by Clements R. Markham. Hakluyt Society. 1878. 

1615-1618. The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the 
Great Moghul. Edited by W. H. Foster, 2 vols. Hakluyt Society, 
1899. 

i6i5-i6[8. A Voyage to the East Indies. By the Rev. Edward 
Terry. London, 1655. 

1623-1624. The Travels of Pietro della Valle in India, from the 
old Etiglish translation of G. Havers. Edited by Edward Grey, late 
Beng. C.S. 2 vols. Hakluyt Society. 1892. 

1626. A relation of some yeares travaile begunne anno 1626. By 
T. H. Esquier (Thomas Herbert). London, 1634. 

1638-1639. The Voyages and Travels of y. Albert de Mandelslo. 
Rendered into English by John Davies of Kidwelly. London, 1662. 

1640-1667. Travels in India by yean Baptiste Tavernier, Baron 
of Aubonne. Translated, etc., by V. Ball, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S. 
2 vols. London, 1889. 

1 666-1 667. The Travels of M. de Thevenot. Translated into 
English by A. Lovell. London, 1687. 

1659-1667. Travels in the Mogul Empire by Francois Bernier, 
M.D. , of the Faculty of Montpellier. A revised and improved edition 
by Archibald Constable. London, 1891. 

1673-168 1. A N^ew Account of India and Persia in Eight Letters. 
By John Fryer, M.D., F.R.S. London, 1698. 

1 68 2-1 684. The Diary of William Hedges. Edited by Sir H. 
Yule, K.C.B. 3 vols. Hakluyt Society. 1887-1888. 

1689-1692. A Voyage to Suratt in the F<?«r 1689. By J. Oving- 
ton, M.A., Chaplain to His Majesty. London, 1696. 

1695. A Voyage round the World by Dr. yohn Francis Gemelli 
Careri. Translated into English. (Churchill's Collection of Voyages 
and Travels, vol. iv. 1745.) 



CONTENTS 

BOOK I 
THE INVASIONS, 712-1206 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. INTRODUCTION THE ARABS IN SIND, 712 . 3 

II. THE IDOL-BREAKERS MAHMUD OF GHAZNI, 

997-1030 . . . . . .14 

III. THE MEN OF THE MOUNTAIN — GHAZNI AND 

GHOR, IO30-I206 ..... 34 



BOOK II 

THE KINGDOM OF DELHI, 1206-1526 

IV. THE SLAVE KINGS THE TURKS IN DELHI, 

1206-I290 ...... 

V. FIRST DECCAN CONQUESTS ALA -AD -DIN 

KHALJI, I290-1321 ..... 

VI. A MAN OF IDEAS MOHAMMAD TAGHLAK, 

I321-I388 

VII. DISINTEGRATION — PROVINCIAL DYNASTIES, 

1388-145 1 

ix 



59 
89 

121 

152 



X CONTENTS 

y BOOK III 

THE MOGHUL EMPIRE, 1526-1764 

CHAPTER PAGE 

VIII. THE COMING OF THE MOGHULS — THE EM- 
PEROR BABAR, 1451-1530 . . . 189 

IX. THE EBB OF THE TIDE HUMAYUN, 153O-1556 2l8 

X. THE UNITED EMPIRE AKBAR, 1556-1605 . 238 

XI. AKBAR's REFORMS THE DIVINE FAITH, 1566- 

1605 259 

XII. THE GREAT MOGHUL AND EUROPEAN TRAV- 
ELLERS, 1605-1627 ..... 289 

XIII. SHAH-JAHAN — THE MAGNIFICENT, 1628-1658 327 

XIV. THE PURITAN EMPEROR AURANGZIB, 1659- 

1680 359 

XV. THE RUIN OF AURANGZIB THE MARATHA 

WAR, 1680-1707 ..... 383 

XVI. THE FALL OF THE MOGHUL EMPIRE THE 

* 
HINDU REVIVAL, 1707-1765 . . . 4IO 

MOHAMMEDAN DYNASTIES .... 425 

INDEX . 435 




CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 

A.D. 

712 The Arabs conquer Sind. 

1000-26 Mahmud of Ghazni's campaigns in India. 

1030 The Panjab remains the sole Muslim province in India. 

1034 Mas'ud storms Hansi. 

1 1 55 Destruction of Ghazni by Jahansoz. 

1 1 86 Mohammad Ghori conquers Panjab. 

1 192 He defeats Rajputs at Narain. 

1 194 Conquest of Benares. 

1 196 Aybek annexes Gujarat. 

1201 Bakhtiyar conquers Bengal. 

1 22 1 Invasion of Chingiz Kaan. 

1234 All Hindustan submits to Altamish. 

1241 The Mongols again invade Panjab. 

1282 Balban recovers Bengal from rebels. 

1294 Ala-ad-din invades the Deccan. 

1297 Battle of Kili : retreat of Mongols. 

1303 Conquest of Chitor. 

1308-10 Deccan conquests (Telingana, Dvara-samudra). 

1336 Mohammad Taghlak transfers capital to Deccan. 

1347 Deccan independent under Hasan Gangu Bahmani. 

1352 Bengal united and independent under Ilyas. 

1355 ff. Public works, canals, etc., of Firoz Shah. 

1370 Conquest of Thatta by Firoz Shah. 

1370 Foundation of kingdom of Khandesh. 

1394 Sharki kingdom of Jaunpur founded. 

1396 Kingdom of Gujarat founded, 

1398 Invasion of Timur. 

1401 Kingdom of Malwa founded. 



xii CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 

A.D. 

1435 ff. King of Malwa takes Kalpi and besieges Delhi, 

1440 Malwa defeated by Kumbho, raja of Chitor. 

1452 King of Jaunpur lays siege to Delhi. 

1477 Bahlol of Delhi conquers Jaunpur. 

1477-81 Bahmani conquests in Deccan. 

1484-92 Foundation of Deccan kingdoms of Berar, Bijapur, Ahmad- 

nagar, and Bidar. 

1498 Vasco da Gama lands at Calicut. 

1508 Egyptian naval victory over Portuguese at Chaul. 

1509 Almeida defeats Egyptian fleet off Diu. 

15 12 Kingdom of Golkonda founded. 

15 13 Portuguese factory established at Diu. 
1524 Babar overruns Panjab. 

1526 Battle of Panipat : Babar annexes Delhi. 

1527 Battle of Kanwaha : Babar defeats Rajputs. 

1528 Battle of the Ganges : Babar defeats Afghans. 

1529 Battle of the Gogra : Babar defeats Bengalis. 
1 531 Humayun defeats Afghans near Lucknow. 
I535~6 Humayun conquers and loses Malwa and Gujarat. 

1538 Humayun in Bengal. 

1539 Sher Shah defeats Humayun at Chaunsa. 

1540 Battle of Kanauj : flight of Humayun. 

1555 Battle of Sirhind : Humayun recovers Delhi. 

1556 Battle of Panipat : Akbar king of Delhi. 
1560-2 Jaunpur, Malwa, Burhanpur annexed. 
1567 Akbar storms Chitor. 

1569 Foundation of Fathpur-Sikri. 

1572-3 Gujarat annexed. 

1574 Ihe Hall of Worship built at Fathpur-Sikri. 

1575 Conquest of Bengal. 

1582 Todar Mai makes new assessment of lands. 

1587 Kashmir, 1592 Sind, 1594 Kandahar annexed. 

1599 Conquest of Ahmadnagar in Deccan. 

1600 Conquest of Asir in Khandesh. 

1600 Incorporation of first East India Company. 

1605 Death of Akbar. 

1609-11 Hawkins at court of Jahangir : English factory at Sural. 

161 5-18 Sir Thomas Roe's embassy to Jahangir. 

1616 Shah-Jahan's campaign in Deccan. 

1622 Kandahar taken by Persia, recovered 1637, lost again 1648. 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY XI 11 

A.D. 

1623 Pietro della Valle in India, 

1624 Rebellion of Shah-Jahan against Jahgairn and Nur-Jahan. 
1627 Death of Jahangir. 

163 1 Suppression of Portuguese at Hugli. 

1635 Shah-Jahan reduces Bijapur to tributary dependence. 

163S Mandelslo at Agra. 

1640 Manrique in India, 

1646 Death of Nur-Jahan. 

1648 Completion of the Taj-Mahall at Agra. 

1648 New Delhi, Shahjahanabad, built. 

1648 Sivaji raids the Konkan. 

1649-52 Aurangzib fails to recover Kandahar from Persians. 

1655 Aurangzib viceroy in the Deccan. 

1656 Golkonda attacked, Bidar and Kulbarga annexed. 

1658 War of succession : battle of Samugarh. 

1659 Accession of Aurangzib : death of Shah-Jahan, 1666. 
1659-66 Bernier at the court of Aurangzib. 

1665 Tavernier in India. 

1666 Suppression of Portuguese pirates in Arakan. 

167 1 Sivaji sacks Surat : Marathas supreme in Deccan. 

1672 Satnami rebellion in Mewat, 
1676 Reimposition of jizya, poll-tax. 

1680 War with Rajputs. 

168 1 Aurangzib takes command against Marathas. 
16S6 Fall of Bijapur, and 1687 of Golkonda. 

1695 Gemelli Careri at Aurangzib's camp in Deccan. 

1707 Death of Aurangzib. 

1708 Revolt of the Sikhs, 

1738 The Marathas advance to Delhi. 

1739 Nadir Shah sacks Delhi. 

174S Afghan invasion under Ahmad Shah routed at Sirhind. 

1756 Ahmad Shah sacks Delhi, 

1757 Battle of Plassey : Clive defeats Nawab, 
1761 Battle of Panipat : defeat of Marathas. 

1764 Battle of Buxar : the Great Moghul becomes a pensioner of 
the East India Company. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



FOUR EMPERORS : BABAR, HUMAYUN, AKBAR, AND 

JAHANGIR . . . . Fro7ttispiece 

GOLD COIN OF MAHMUD, STRUCK AT NAISABUR IN 

KHURASAN, A.H. 402 (a.D. IOII-I2) . . 18 

INDIAN BILLON CURRENCY OF MAHMUD, STRUCK AT 

MAHMUDPUR, A.H. 418 (a.D. IO27) . . 27 

COIN OF GHIYAS-AD-DIN, SHOWING SPEARMAN ON 

ELEPHANT . . . . ' . . .48 

FORT OF AJMIR ....... 52 

SILVER COIN OF MOHAMMAD GHORI, STRUCK AT 

GHAZNI, A.H. 596 (a.D. 1199) • • • 55 

BILLON COIN OF YILDIZ, SHOWING CHOHAN HORSE- 
MAN ........ 65 

THE KUTB MINAR AT DELHI ..... 67 

THE GREAT MOSQUE OF AJMIR, WITH INSCRIPTION 

OF ALTAMISH ....... 69 

SILVER COIN OF ALTAMISH 73 

TOMB OF ALTAMISH AT DELHI .... 75 

SILVER COIN OF QUEEN RAZIYA, STRUCK AT LAKH- 

NAUTI ........ 77 

GOLD COIN OF BALBAN, STRUCK AT DELHI, A.H. 

672 (a.D. 1273-4) ..... 83 

XV 



xvi ILL us TRA TIONS 

PAGE 

GOLD COIN OF ALA-AD-DIN, STRUCK AT DELHI, A.H. 

698 (a.d. 1298-9) 95 

THE GATEWAY OF ALA-AD-DIN IN THE MOSQUE AT 

DELHI . . . IIO 

FORT OF TAGHLAKABAD, AT DELHI, ENCLOSING 

TOMB OF TAGHLAK SHAK .... I23 

GOLD COIN OF MOHAMMAD TAGHLAK, STRUCK AT 

DELHI, A.H. 726 (a.d. I326) .... I28 

BRASS MONEY OF MOHAMMAD TAGHLAK, STRUCK AT 

DELHI, A.H. 731 (a.d. 133O-31) . . .134 

TOMB OF FIROZ SHAH AT DELHI . . . . I45 

GOLD COIN OF FIROZ SHAH, A.H. 788 (a.D. I386) . 150 

GOLDEN MOSQUE AT GAUR 165 

MINAR of FIROZ II. AT GAUR (1488) . . . 167 

fort of jaunpur, east gate .... 168 

atala devi mosque, at jaunpur . . . 170 
tower of victory at chitor . . . -173 
gold coin of ghiyas shah of malwa, a.h. 880 

(a.d. 1475-6) 175 

gold coin of mahmud shah of gujarat, a.h. 

946 (a.d. 1539-40) 178 

gold coin of firoz, struck at ahsanabad, a.h. 

807 (a.d. 1404-5) 182 

the emperor babar ...... i95 

' malik-i-maidam ' •' gigantic howitzer cast 
by mohammad rumi in 1548 at ahmad- 

NAGAR ........ 211 

BABAR, HUMAYUN, AKBAR, AND JAHANGIR . . 221 



ILL US TRA TIONS 
SILVER COIN OF SHER SHAH, STRUCK AT DELHI, A.H 

947 (a.d. 1540-1) 

TOMB OF HUMAYUN AT DELHI 

GOLD COINS OF AKBAR ...... 

AGRA GATE, FATHPUR-SIKRI .... 

THE DIWAN-I-KHAS, FATHPUR-SIKRI 

THE CENTRAL COLUMN IN THE DIWAN-I-KHAS 
FATHPUR-SIKRI ..... 

THE GREAT GATEWAY, BALAND DARWAZA, FATH 
PUR-SIKRI ...... 

* THE TURKISH SULTANA's HOUSE,' FATHPUR-SIKRI 
DARUGHA PERSHAD's HOUSE, FATHPUR-SIKRI. 

akbar's tomb, at SIKANDRA 

GOLD COINS OF JAHANGIR .... 

PALACE OF JAHANGIR AT AGRA 

TOMB OF NUR-JAHAN's FATHER AT AGRA 

COIN OF JAHANGIR AND NUR-JAHAN, STRUCK AT 
AGRA, A.H. 1037 (a.d. 1627-8) 

ZODIACAL GOLD MOHRS OF JAHANGIR 

TOMB OF JAHANGIR AT LAHORE 

THE TAJ-MAHALL AT AGRA . 

SHAH-JAHAN's PALACE AT AGRA 

SHAH-JAHAN 



GOLD COIN OF SHAH-JAHAN, A 

1655-6) . . . 

AURANGZIB .... 



H. 1066 (a.d 



THE JAMI MASJID, OR GREAT MOSQUE, AT DELHI 



XVll 

PAGE 

253 
260 

265 

270 
276 
281 
287 
297 
301 

311 

317 
319 
325 

337 
339 
343 

348 
361 

369 



Xvlil ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 



LATTICE IN BATHROOM OF SHAH-JAHAN S PALACE 

AT DELHI . . . . . . .371 

THE DIWAN-I-AMM AT DELHI .... 373 

GOLD COIN OF AURANGZIB, STRUCK AT THATTA, 

' A.H. 1072 (a.D. 1661-2) .... 379 

THE MIHTAR-I-MAHALL AT BIJAPUR . . . 391 

THE GREAT MOSQUE OF BIJAPUR .... 395 

GOLD COIN OF AURANGZIB, STRUCK AT BIJAPUR, 

A.H. 1099 (a.D. 1687-8) .... 400 



jj;*^The portraits of Moghul emperors are reproduced from 
manuscripts in the British Museum, viz. Babar from Add. 5717, four 
emperors together from Add. 20,734, Shah-Jahan and Aurangzib 
from Add. i8,8or. The illustrations of Bijapur and the Malik-i- 
Maidan are from Taylor and Fergusson's Architecture at Beejapoor 
(Murray, 1866), and. those of Gaur from J. H. Ravenshaw's Gatir 
(Kegan Paul, 1878). All the other views are from photographs 
taken for the Archseological Survey of India. The coins are from 
specimens in the British Museum and are fully described in S. 
Lane-Poole's Catalogue of Oriental and Indian Coins in the British 
Museum. 




BOOK I 
THE INVASIONS 

712-1206 



CHAPTER I 



INTRODUCTION 



THE ARABS IN SIND 



712 



THE population of India in the present day is 
over three hundred millions, and every sixth 
man is a Muslim. Nine hundred years ago there 
were no Mohammedans east of the Indus ; where 
now there are more than fifty millions, and the king 
of England rules twice as many Muslim subjects as 
the sultan of Turkey and the shah of Persia together. 
For six centuries the Hindus submitted to the sov- 
ereignty of Mohammedan kings, and when the great 
effort was made in 1857 to throw off the British 
yoke, it was round the Mohammedan emperor of 
Delhi, though a mere shadow of a famous name, 
that the mutineers rallied. How the Muslims, for- 
eigners both in creed and race, came to conquer 
India, and how this small but increasing minority 
imposed its will upon the greater part of the people 
of the land, is the subject of this book. 

When we speak of the Mohammedans as foreign- 

3 



4 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

ers, we mean of course the original conquerors. The 
present Muslim population is almost as native as the 
Hindus themselves. The invaders consisted of 
armies of men, very few of whom brought their 
women with them. They married Hindu wives, 
and the mixed race thus formed intermarried further 
with the natives, and each generation became more 
and more Indian. Besides the Muslims descended 
from the successive armies of invaders and their 
native wives, a very large proportion of the In- 
dian Muslims were and are native converts from 
Hinduism. It has been estimated that about fifty 
thousand Hindus 'turn Turk' annually, and neither 
the religion nor the rule of the Muslims has proved 
intolerable to the natives. Islam commended itself 
to the Indian intellect as a more congenial faith than 
Christianity, and the disorder and corruption of 
Mohammedan government were not distasteful to a 
people who had never known anything better. 

We must dismiss at the outset any idea of Arabian 
influence in India. The Mohammedan conquerors 
were not Arabs. When the armies of the Saracens 
spread out over the ancient world in the seventh 
century, they overcame most human obstacles, but 
nature itself was sometimes impregnable. They 
overran North Africa, but the inhospitable desert of 
the Sahara discouraged any southern expansion ; 
they occupied Spain, but the Atlantic checked their 
progress west, and being no sailors they left to their 
European successors the glory of discovering the 
New World. In the East they trampled over Persia 
as far as the great rivers of Central Asia ; but the 



ftik ARABS IN SIND 5 

icy walls of the Hindu Kush saved India. A famous 
Arab general subdued Bokhara and Samarkand, but 
he did not venture to surmount the snows that barred 
the way into Hindustan. The Arabs never opened 
that perilous north-west passage which has poured so 
many foreign hordes into the teeming plains below. 
The only Arab attempt upon India came from a 
different quarter. Little as the Muslims of the des- 
ert relished the wonders of the deep, there were sea- 
faring traders on the Arabian coasts to whom the 
ports of western India had been familiar from the 
earliest times. Arab merchants sailed from Siraf 
and Hurmuz in the Persian gulf, coasting along till 
they came to the mouth of the Indus, and thence on 
to Sapera and Cambay ; or they even struck boldly 
across from their harbours at Kalhat and Kurayyat 
in Oman to Calicut and other ports on the Malabar 
coast. These men brought back tidings of the 
wealth and luxury of India, of gold and diamonds, 
jewelled idols, gorgeous religious rites, and a wonder- 
ful civilization. The temptation of such wealth was 
sanctioned by the zeal of the iconoclast, and the spo- 
liation of the idolaters became a means of grace. At 
a time when the armies of Islam were overrunning 
the known world, such a field of operations as India 
could not be overlooked, and accordingly we find a 
pillaging expedition visiting Tana (near the present 
Bombay) as early as 637 during the reign of the ca- 
liph Omar, the second successor of Mohammad the 
Prophet. Other forays followed, for the Arabs of 
the Persian gulf were a venturesome folk and made 
repeated descents upon the Indian coast. 



6 MEDIAL VAL INDIA 

All these however were mere raids. Plunder, not 
conquest, was their aim, and they led to nothing 
more. The only serious invasion of the Arabs went 
by land from Mekran, the most eastern province of 
the caliphate on the Persian coast, whose governors 
frequently came to blows with the Indians across the 
frontier, where no natural barrier intervened. The 
invasion was belated, compared with the other cam- 
paigns, for the caliphs' hands were full of more press- 
ing affairs. The tremendous successes of the first 
sweep of Arab conquest are apt to blind us to the 
tedious and toilsome progress of their arms in all 
but the earliest campaigns. No doubt their triumph 
over the degenerate empires of Rome and Persia 
was comparatively swift. Five years sufficed for the 
subjugation of Syria, seven more saw Persia at their 
feet, and two were enough for the conquest of all 
Egypt. But when the Arabs were opposed by tribes 
as untamed and warlike as themselves, their advance 
was slow and difficult, and every mile was obstin- 
ately disputed. Carthage, for example, was all but 
reached within a few years of the conquest of Egypt, 
but it did not actually fall for nearly half a century, 
and the vigorous resistance of the Berber tribes de- 
layed the progress of the Muslims in Africa till 
the close of the seventh century. It was the same 
in the East. While Persia was speedily overcome as 
far as the river Oxus, it was not till the first decade 
of the eighth century that the country beyond its 
banks was added to the settled provinces of the 
caliphate. The Arabs were too few for all the work 
they attempted in widely separated lands, and up 



THE ARABS IN SIND 7 

to 700 A.D. they had quite enough to do without 
burdening themselves with such an enterprise as the 
conquest of India. 

The first and only Arab invasion coincided in 
date with two other signal successes in distant parts 
of the globe. Gothic Spain was shattered at the 
battle of the Guadalete in 710; the standards of 
Islam were carried from Samarkand to Kashghar in 
71 1-7 14 ; and the valley of the Indus was invaded in 
712. These three steps mark the apogee of the power 
of the Omayyad caliphate, and coincide with the 
administration of one of the ablest and most relent- 
less of all Muslim statesmen. Al-Hajjaj, the gover- 
nor of Chaldaea, sent Kutaiba north to spread Islam 
over the borders of Tartary, and at the same time 
dispatched his own cousin Mohammad Kasim to 
India. The reigning caliph consented unwillingly; 
he dreaded the distance, the cost, the loss of life. 
■ Even in those days, to adapt modern phrases, there 
were the opposing policies of ' Little Arabians ' and 
* Imperialists.' Hajjaj was imperialist to the core, 
and to him the Arabs owed the impulse which gave 
them all they ever won in India. 

The^story of Mohammad Kasim's adventures is 
one of the romances of history. He was but seven- 
teen, and he was venturing into a land scarcely 
touched as yet by Saracen spears, a land inhabited 
by warlike races, possessed of an ancient and deeply 
rooted civilization, there to found a government 
which, however successful, would be the loneliest in 
the whole vast Mohammedan empire, a province cut 
off by sea, by mountains, by desert, from all peoples 



8 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

of kindred race and faith. Youth and high spirit, 
however, forbade alike fear and foreboding. The 
young general had at least six thousand picked 
horsemen to his back, chosen from the caliph's vet- 
erans, with an equal number of camelry, and was 
supplied with a baggage-train of three thousand 
Bactrian camels. Marching through Mekran, along 
the Persian coast, he was joined by the provincial 
governor with more troops ; and five stone-slings for 
siege-work were sent by sea to meet him at Daibul, 
the great mediaeval port of the Indus valley, the 
forerunner of Karachi. 

There in the spring of 712 Mohammad Kasim set 
up his catapults and dug his trench. A description 
of this siege has come down to us from an early his- 
torian (al-Baladhuri, writing about 840), from which 
it appears that the Arab spearmen were drawn up 
along the trench, each separate company under its 
own banner, and that five hundred men were sta- 
tioned to work the heavy catapult named * the 
Bride.' A great red flag flaunted on the top of a 
tall temple, and the order came from Hajjaj, with 
whom the general was in constant communication, 
to * fix the stone-sling and shorten its foot and aim 
at the flagstaff.' So the gunners lowered the trajec- 
tory and brought down the pole with a shrewd shot. 
The fall of the sacred flag dismayed the garrison ; a 
sortie was repulsed with loss ; the Muslims brought 
ladders and scaled the walls, and the place was car- 
ried by assault. The governor fled, the Brahmans 
were butchered, and after three days of carnage a 
Mohammedan quarter was laid out, a mosque built, 



THE ARABS IN SIND g 

and a garrison of four thousand men detached to 
hold the city. 

After the storming of Daibul, the young general 
marched up the right bank of the Indus in search of 
the main body of the enemy. Discovering their out- 
posts on the other side, he tied a string of boats 
together, filled them with archers, made one end fast 
to the west bank, and then let the whole floating 
bridge drift down and across, like an angler's cast of 
flies, till it touched the opposite side, where it was 
made fast to stakes under cover of the archers' ar- 
rows. The enemy, unable to oppose the landing, 
fell back upon Rawar, where the Arabs beheld for 
the first time the imposing array of Hindu chiefs, 
mounted on armoured w^ar-elephants, and led by 
their king Dahir. Naphtha arrows, however, disor- 
dered the elephants and set fire to the howdahs; the 
king was slain, the Hindus fled, and 'the Muslims 
were glutted with slaughter.' The Indian women 
showed the desperate courage for which they were 
famous. The king's sister called them together, on 
seeing the defeat of their men ; and, refusing to owe 
their lives to the ' vile cow-eaters,' at the price of 
dishonour, they set their house ablaze and perished 
in the flames. Another victory at Brahmanabad 
opened the way to Multan, the chief city of the 
upper Indus, which surrendered at discretion, but 
not without an exhausting siege. The fighting men 
were massacred ; the priests, workmen, women, and 
children made captives. 

The fall of Multan laid the Indus valley at the 
feet of the conqueror. The tribes came in, * ringing 



lO MEDIEVAL INDIA 

bells and beating drums and dancing,' in token of 
welcome. The Hindu rulers had oppressed them 
heavily, and the Jats and Meds and other tribes 
were on the side of the invaders. The work of con- 
quest, as often happened in India, was thus aided 
by the disunion of the inhabitants, and jealousies of 
race and creed conspired to help the Muslims. To 
such suppliants Mohammad Kasim gave the liberal 
terms that the Arabs usually offered to all but in- 
veterate foes. He imposed the customary poll-tax, 
took hostages for good conduct, and spared the 
people's lands and lives. He even left their shrines 
undesecrated : * The temples,' he proclaimed, ' shall 
be inviolate, like the churches of the Christians, the 
synagogues of the Jews, and the altars of the 
Magians.' There was worldly wisdom in this tolera- 
tion, for the pilgrims' dues paid to the temples 
formed an important source of revenue, and the 
puritanical Muslims found it expedient to compound 
with idolatry, as a vain thing but lucrative, in the 
interests of the public fisc. Occasional desecration 
of Hindu fanes took place, — we read of * a cart-load 
of four-armed idols' sent as a suitable gift to the 
caliph, who no doubt preferred specie — but such 
demonstrations were probably rare sops to the 
ofificial conscience, and as a rule the Mohammedan 
government of Multan was at once tolerant and 
economic. The citizens and villagers were allowed 
to furnish the tax-collectors themselves ; the Brah- 
mans were protected and entrusted with high ofifices, 
for which their education made them indispensable; 
and the conqueror's instructions to all his ofificers 



THE ARABS IN SIND II 

were wise and conciliatory : — ' Deal honestly/ he 
commanded, 'between the people and the gover- 
nor; if there be distribution, distribute equitably, 
and fix the revenue according to the ability to pay. 
Be in concord among yourselves, and wrangle not, 
that the country be not vexed.* 

The young general's fate was tragic. A new 
caliph succeeded who was no friend to the con- 
queror of Sind. Hajjaj was dead, and there was 
none to oppose factious intrigues at the distant 
court of Damascus. In spite of his brilliant achieve- 
ment, Mohammad Kasim was disgraced and put to 
death. The story runs that he had made too free 
with the captive daughters of Dahir before pre- 
senting them to the caliph's harim, and that he was 
punished for the presumption by being sewn up 
alive in a raw cow-hide. * Three days afterwards 
the bird of life arose from his body and soared to 
heaven ' ; and the hide with its noble burden was 
sent to Damascus. The young hero had made no 
protest, never questioned the death-warrant, but 
submitted to the executioners with the fearless dig- 
nity he had shown throughout his short but valiant 
life. But when the sacrifice was accomplished, the 
Indian princesses, moved perhaps by the courage of 
a victim brave as their own devoted race, confessed 
that their tale was deliberately invented to avenge 
their father's death upon his conqueror. The caliph 
in impotent fury had them dragged at horses' tails 
through the city till they miserably perished, but the 
second crime was no expiation for the first. 

The Arabs had conquered Sind, but the conquest 



12 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

was only an episode in the history of India and of 
Islam, a triumph without results. The Indus pro- 
vince, it is true, is as large as England, but it consists 
chiefly of desert, and the Arabs made no attempt to 
extend their dominion into the fertile plains beyond. 
It has been supposed that the crude civilization and 
austere creed of the Muslims stood paralyzed in face 
of the rich and ancient culture, the profound philo- 
sophy, and the sensual ritual of the Hindus; but 
these contrasts did not check the later successes of 
Islam in the same land. The more obvious explana- 
tion of the Arabs' failure is found in the as yet un- 
broken strength of the Rajput kings on the north 
and east, and in the inadequate forces dispatched by 
the caliphs for so formidable a project as the con- 
quest of India. After the first expedition under the 
ill-fated Mohammad Kasim we hear of no reinforce- 
ments, and twenty years after his death the Arabs 
were still so insecure on the Indus that they built a 
city of refuge as a retreat in times of jeopardy. 
The province was not only imperfectly subdued but 
extremely poor, and the caliphs soon abandoned it 
in all but name as too unremunerative to be worth 
maintaining. The Arab settlers formed independ- 
ent dynasties at Multan and at the new city of Man- 
sura which the conqueror's son founded in lower 
Sind ; and when the traveller Mas'udi visited the 
valley of the Indus in the tenth century he found 
chiefs of the Prophet's tribe of the Kuraish ruling 
both the upper and the lower province. A little 
later another traveller, Ibn-Haukal, explored Sind, 
where he heard Arabic and Sindi spoken, and ob- 



THE ARABS IN SIND 1 3 

served much friendly toleration between the Muslim 
and Hindu population. Soon afterwards Multan be- 
came a refuge for scattered bands of Karmathians, 
when the power of these anarchists waned before the 
rising ascendancy of the Fatimid caliphs of Egypt, 
and Arabia was delivered from the Karmathian reign 
of terror. But the meagre annals of this limited and 
ineffectual occupation of an unimportant province 
need not detain us. The Arab conquest of Sind 
led to nothing, and left scarcely a vestige save in 
the names of certain Arab families and in the ruins 
of the buildings they destroyed. The Arab cities 
have perished, but the wrecks of the castles and cities 
of their predecessors, which formed as usual the 
quarries for their conquerors' buildings, still bear 
witness to the civilization which they uprooted. 




CHAPTER II 



THE IDOL-BREAKER 



MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 



997-1030 



THE Arab invasion was a failure. It attacked 
from the wrong quarter, entered on the least 
productive province, and was too feebly supported 
to spread further. We hear no more of the Arabs 
as conquerors in India. The role devolved upon 
the Turks, and when we speak of the Mohammedan 
empire in India we mean the rule of the Turks. 
Their invasion was no part of the expansion of 
Islam as a religious movement. It was merely the 
overflow of the teeming cradle-land of Central Asia, 
the eastern counterpart of those vast migrations of 
Huns, Turks, and Mongols, which from time to time 
swept over Europe like a locust cloud. Huns, 
Scythians, and Yavanas had poured into India in 
prehistoric ages through those grim north-western 
passes which every now and then opened like sluice- 
gates to let the turbid flood of barbarians down into 
the deep calm waters of the Indian world. Their 

14 



MAHMUD OF GHAZNI " 1$ 

descendants still muster in tribes and clans on the 
borders of Hindustan, and have brought strange 
customs and beliefs to mingle with that old religion 
of the Vedas which the Aryan forefathers of the 
Brahmans and Rajputs bore with them through the 
same narrow entry. Following in their track Alex- 
ander led his armies to meet Porus on the Hydaspes; 
and after him came Grseco-Bactrian legions to inspire 
new ideas of art and civilization, and to learn per- 
haps more than they taught. Finally the Muslim 
Turks discovered the same road, and once famiHar 
with the way, they came again and again until all 
India, save the very apex of the south, owned their 
sway. 

The southerly migration of the Turks was the 
master-movement in the Mohammedan empire in 
the tenth and eleventh centuries. Hitherto the 
caliphate had remained undisturbed by armed inva- 
sion. On the fall of the Omayyad line, the seat of 
government had been moved from Damascus to the 
new capital founded by their successors the Abbasid 
caliphs at Baghdad, and the change had been fol- 
lowed by a large influx of Persian ideas into the 
Arab system. Persian ofificials, better educated and 
shrewder men of affairs, replaced Arabs in many of 
the chief posts of government, and as the central 
authority grew weaker and more effeminate, Persian 
governors acquired almost independent power in 
the more distant provinces and began to found 
hereditary dynasties, one of the most powerful and 
enlightened of which was that of the Samanid princes 
in the country about the Oxus. 



1 6 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

The increase, peaceful as it was, of Persian influ- 
ence, combined with the constant jealousies and 
truculence of the Arab tribes settled in Mesopota- 
mia, induced the caliphs to provide themselves with 
a guard of mercenaries closely attached to the throne, 
and for this purpose the warlike and handsome 
young Turks captured on the northern frontier 
supplied all that was desired in valour and ability. 
Surrounded by such praetorians the caliphs indulged 
their love of luxury free from the dread of Persian 
usurpation or Arab revolt. But it was introducing 
the wooden horse into the Muslim Troy. The 
Turkish guard became the masters of the caliphs; 
Turkish ofificers gradually acquired the control of 
provinces ; and throughout the Mohammedan em- 
pire, from Egypt to Samarkand, the Turks became 
the dominant race. Their success attracted others 
of their kind. Like Joseph they soon invited their 
brethren to come and share their prosperity. Turks 
overflowed into Persia from their native steppes; 
the Samanid kingdom, after two centuries of power 
well employed, fell to a scramble among Turkish 
adventurers, and this scramble led to the invasion of 
India. 

Among the Turkish condottiere who rose to high 
ofiice in northern Persia was one Alptagin, who, 
falling out with his Samanid lord, established him- 
self with a couple of thousand followers in the fort- 
ress of Ghazni ^ in the heart of the Afghan mountains 
(a.d. 962). Here, in a kind of no-man's-land, secure 

' Ghazni, the modern spelling, is written Ghaznin in Persian and 
Ghazna in Arabic. 



MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1 7 

from interference, he made his Httle kingdom, and 
here after an interval his slave Sabuktagin reigned in 
his stead (976). The new ruler was not content with 
the original stronghold of his master. He gathered 
under his banner the neighbouring Afghan tribes, 
added whole provinces to his dominions, — Laghman 
to the east in the Kabul valley, Sistan on the Persian 
side; — and, when called in to support the tottering 
Samanid prince of Bukhara against the encroaching 
Turks, he turned the occasion to his own advantage 
and placed his son Mahmud in command of the rich 
province of Khurasan. Sabuktagin was the first 
Muslim who attempted the invasion of India from 
the north-west. He went but a little way, it is true; 
his repeated defeat of Jaipal, the Brahman raja of the 
Panjab, in the Kabul valley, ended only in the tem- 
porary submission of the Indian king and the 
payment of tribute ; but it pointed the way into 
Hindustan. 

Sabuktagin died (997) before he could accomplish 
any larger scheme, but his son more than realized 
his most daring dreams. Mahmud had all his 
father's soldierly energy and spirit of command, 
joined to a restless activity, a devouring ambition, 
and the temper of a zealot. Zeal for Islam was the 
dominant note of the tenth-century Turks, as of 
most callow converts. The great missionary creed 
of Mohammad, which to the Arabs and Persians had 
become a familiar matter of routine, was a source of 
fiery inspiration to the fresh untutored men of the 
steppes. To spread the faith by conquest doubled 
their natural zest for battle and endowed them with 



1 8 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

the devoted valour of martyrs. Mahmud was a 
staunch Muslim, and if his campaigns against the 
idolaters brought him rich store of treasure and 
captives, it was in his eyes no more than the fit re- 
ward of piety ; and in the intervals between his 
forays into heathendom he would sit down and copy 
Korans for the health of his soul. The caliph of 
Baghdad, who had probably outgrown such illusions, 
was not the man to baulk a willing sword. He sent 
Mahmud his pontifical sanction and the official di- 





. GOLD COIN OF MAHMUD, STRUCK AT NAISABUR IN KHURASAN, 
A.H. 402 (a.D. IOII-I2). 

ploma of investiture as rightful lord of Ghazni and 
Khurasan, and in the height of satisfaction Mahmud 
vowed that every year should see him wage a Holy 
War against the infidels of Hindustan. 

If he did not keep the letter of his vow, he fell 
little short. Between the years 1000 and 1026 he 
made at least sixteen distinct campaigns in India, in 
which he ranged across the plains from the Indus to 
the Ganges.^ His first attack was of course upon 

^ Authorities differ as to the number and order of these campaigns. 
The following is Sir H. M. Elliot's arrangement : i. Frontier towns, 
A.D. 1000 ; 2. Peshawar and Waihind, 1001 ; 3. Bhira (Bhatia), 



MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 1 9 

the frontier towns of the Khaibar pass. His father's 
old enemy Jaipal endeavoured in vain to save Pesha- 
war. Mahmud threw out 15,000 of his best horse- 
men and utterly routed him, despite his larger forces 
and his 300 elephants. Jaipal and fifteen of his kin- 
dred were brought captives before the conqueror. 
Their jewelled necklaces, worth, it is said, ninety 
thousand guineas ^ apiece, were torn off, and half a 
million of slaves, and booty past counting, according 
to the florid statements of the oriental historians, fell 
into the hands of the Muslims. Mahmud was not 
cruel ; he seldom indulged in wanton slaughter ; and 
when a treaty of peace had been concluded, the raja 
and his friends were set free. With the proud de- 
spair of his race Jaipal refused to survive his dis- 
grace. Preferring death to dishonour, he cast himself 
upon a funeral pyre. 

There were many other kings besides Jaipal, how- 
ever, and when — after a successful raid upon Bhira, 
where ' the Hindus rubbed their noses in the dust of 
disgrace,' and another to Multan, whose Mohamme- 
dan (or rather Karmathian) ruler fled aghast — 
Mahmud appeared again at the mouth of the Khai- 
bar in 1008, he found all the rajas of the Panjab, 

1004; 4. Multan, 1006; 5. Against Nawasa, 1007; 6. Nagarkot, 
1008 ; 7. Narain, 1009 ; 8, Multan, loio ; g. Ninduna, 1013 ; 10. 
Thanesar, 1014 ; 1 1. Lohkot (perhaps = 14), 1015 ; 12. Mathura, 
Kanauj, 1018 ; 13. The Rahib, 1021 ; 14. Kirat, Lohkot, Lahore, 
1022 ; 15. Gwaliar, Kalinjar, 1023 ; 16. Somnath, 1025-6 ; 17. The 
Jats, 1026. 

^ 180,000 dinars. The Arab gold dinar of this time was almost 
exactly the weight of a half-guinea, and it is therefore convenient to 
state values in guineas. 



20 MEDL-^VAL INDIA 

backed by allies from other parts of Hindustan, * a 
measureless multitude,' mustered to resist him, with 
Anandpal the son of Jaipal at their head. Mahmud 
had never yet encountered such an army, and he 
hastily intrenched his camp and waited forty days 
facing the constantly swelling forces of the enemy. 
His first move, probably a mere reconnaissance, was 
disastrous. The thousand archers he sent forward 
were chased back into the camp followed by a charg- 
ing mob of wild Gakkars — a fierce Scythian tribe 
whose outbreaks troubled the peace of the north- 
west frontier as late as 1857, and whose savage aspect, 
bareheaded and barefoot, and barbarous habits of 
infanticide and polyandry, struck terror and disgust 
among the Muslims. These frantic hillmen rushed 
the trenches and slashed right and left ; man and 
horse fell before their onslaught, and it almost came 
to a panic among the Turks. The Rajputs were al- 
ready advancing under cover of the Gakkars' charge, 
and Mahmud was about to sound the retreat, when 
one of those lucky accidents happened which have 
often turned the fortune of a day. Anandpal's 
elephant took fright ; the rumour ran that the raja 
was flying from the field ; vague suspicions and dis- 
trust spread about, and a general stampede ensued. 
Instead of retreating before a victorious army, in the 
turn of an instant Mahmud found himself pursuing 
a panic-stricken crowd. For two days the Muslims 
slew, captured, and despoiled to their hearts' con- 
tent. ' They had come through fire and through 
water, but their Lord had brought them into a 
wealthy place.* 



MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 21 

On a spur of the snow mountains, surrounded 
by a moat, stood the fortress of Kangra (Nagarkot), 
deemed impregnable by mortal power. Here the 
rajas and wealthy men of India were wont to store 
their treasure, and hither the triumphing Muslims 
came, hot with pursuit and victory. The panic that 
had dissolved the hosts of the Panjab seized also 
upon the garrison of the fortress, weakened as it 
must have been by the general levy to oppose the 
invaders. At Mahmud's blockade the defenders 
* fell to the earth like sparrows before the hawk.' 
Immense stores of treasure and jewels, money and 
silver ingots, were laden upon camels, and a pavilion 
of silver and a canopy of Byzantine linen reared upon 
pillars of silver and gold were among the prizes of 
the Holy War. The booty was displayed in the 
court of the palace at Ghazni, ' jewels and unbored 
pearls and rubies, shining like sparks or iced wine, 
emeralds as it were sprigs of young myrtle, diamonds 
as big as pomegranates.' The eastern chroniclers 
tell of seventy million silver dirhams, and hundreds 
of thousands of pounds' weight of silver cups and 
vessels ; and, with every allowance for exaggeration, 
the spoils must have been colossal. All the world 
flocked to Ghazni to gaze upon the incredible wealth 
of India. 

Such rewards were incentives enough to carry on 
the pious work. Year after year Mahmud swept 
over the plains of Hindustan, capturing cities and 
castles, throwing down temples and idols, and earn- 
ing his titles of 'Victor' and 'Idol-breaker,' Ghazi 
and Batshikan. Little is known of the political 



22 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

condition of India at the time of these raids, but it 
is evident that after the great rout in the Panjab 
there was no concerted resistance. The country was 
spHt up into numerous kingdoms, many of which 
were at feud with one another. There were the 
Brahman kings of Gandhara on the Indus, the To- 
maras at Delhi and Kanauj, the Buddhist Palas of 
Magadha on the lower Ganges, the survivors of the 
Guptas in Malwa, the Kalachuris on the Narbada, 
the Chandillas of Mahoba, and many more, who 
united might have stemmed any invasion, but whose 
jealousies brought their ruin. Internal division has 
proved the undoing of India again and again, and 
has sapped the power of mere numbers which alone 
could enable the men of the warm plains to stand 
against the hardy mountain tribes and the relentless 
horsemen of the Central Asian steppes. To the 
contrasts of union and disunion, north and south, 
race and climate, was added the zeal of the Muslim 
and the greed of the robber. The mountaineers 
were as poor as they were brave, and covetous as 
they were devout. The treasures of India, heaped 
up round the colossal figures of obscene idols, ap- 
pealed irresistibly to these hungry fanatics. It was 
no wonder that they carried all before them, de- 
voured the rich lands like a cloud of locusts, and 
returned to their frozen homes with a welcome such 
as meets the mooring of an argosy. Each campaign 
made them stronger and more terrible. They 
brought home not treasure only but recruits, and 
to the volunteers who flocked to the spoil from the 
Oxus and laxartes, and to the unrivalled cavalry of 



MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 23 

their native steppes, they gradually added a powerful 
force of elephantry fit to confront the heavy arm 
that formed the first line in an Indian battle. 

Mahmud's success, however, was not won without 
hard fighting and sore privations. Man was more 
easily overcome than nature, and the endurance of 
the hardy and vigorous northmen was often tested 
almost to the breaking-point. When they set out in 
10 1 3 to invade 'the capital of India,* whose king 
had failed to pay his annual tribute of fifty laden 
elephants and two thousand slaves, they were checked 
at the frontier by deep snow; the mountains and 
valleys appeared almost level under the treacherous 
white mantle, and the army was forced to protect 
itself in winter quarters. Moving onwards in the 
warmer weather, they wandered for months * among 
broad deep rivers and dense jungles where even 
wild beasts might get lost.* At last they found * the 
king of India' — probably one of the Sahi dynasty of 
Gandhara — posted in a narrow pass with his vassals 
at his back. The veterans from the Oxus and those 
* devilish Afghan spearmen bored into the gorge like 
a gimlet into wood,* but it took several days of hard 
fighting before the place was carried. Then followed 
a weary march across the stern desert of Rajputana 
to Thanesar, a day's journey from Delhi, and here 
again a local raja had to be dislodged from a steep 
pass where he waited with his splendid troop of Cey- 
lon elephants behind a rapid river. But Mahmud was 
no novice in tactics. He forded the river and 
crowned the heights on either side, and while two 
detachments fell upon the enemy's flanks the sultan's 



24 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

main battle flung itself into the ravine and the posi- 
tion was stormed. The river ran blood, the pass 
was a shambles ; but the Hindus fled, their famous 
elephants were captured, and their town gave up its 
spoil. 

There was no lack of volunteers to aid in the Holy 
War. Mahmud's victories were known all over the 
East, and twenty thousand warriors came to him 
from the country beyond the Oxus, praying to be 
granted the privilege of fighting for the faith and so 
perchance attaining the crown of martyrdom. With 
a large army, stiffened by these zealots, the sultan 
fought his greatest campaign in 1018, and pushed 
further east than ever before. He marched upon 
Kanauj, the capital of the Tomara rajas and then 
reputed the chief city of Hindustan. The march 
was an orgy and an ovation. Everywhere envoys 
waited on the conqueror bearing proffers of homage 
and welcome. The chief who held the passes of 
Kashmir, which immemorial jealousy had guarded 
with infinite precaution from foreign footsteps, ten- 
dered his fealty and his service as a guide. One 
after the other the rivers of India were crossed, 
Indus, Jehlam, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, with scarcely a 
check. Forts and cities surrendered as the great 
sultan passed by; abject chiefs placed their followers 
at his disposal; through the thick jungle he pene- 
trated * like a comb through a poll of hair,' fighting 
when necessary, but more often triumphing by mere 
prestige. Early in December he reached the Jumna 
and stood before the walls of Mathura, an ancient 
home of Hindu worship, filled with temples ' not 



MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 2$ 

built by man but by the Jinn,' where colossal golden 
idols flashed with jewels, and silver gods of loathly 
aspect stood so huge that they had to be broken up 
before they could be weighed. 

Pressing eastwards, Kanauj was reached before 
Christmas. The raja had already fled at the mere 
bruit of the sultan's coming, and the seven forts 
of the great city on the Ganges fell in one day. 
Of all its gorgeous shrines not a temple was spared. 
Nor were the neighbouring princes more fortunate. 
Deep jungles and broad moats could not protect 
Chandal Bhor of Asi ; and even Chand Rai, the 
great lord of Sharwa, when he heard the ominous 
tramp of the Turkish horsemen, gathered up his 
treasures and made for the hills : for it was told him 
that ' Sultan Mahmud was not like the rulers of 
Hind, and those who followed him were no^ black 
men.' Flight did not save Chand Rai ; the enemy 
tracked him through the forest, and coming up with 
him at midnight attacked in the dark, routed, plun- 
dered, and revelled for three days, and carried home 
such booty and mobs of prisoners that the slave 
markets of Persia were glutted and a servant could 
be bought for a couple of shillings. 

Two years later the sultan met the evasive raja of 
Kanauj. It was at the ' Rahib,' — probably the 
Ramaganga, — a deep river with a black bituminous 
bottom, ' fit to scald a scabby sheep.' Fording was 
out of the question, and Mahmud ordered his ad- 
vance-guard to swim the river on air-skins, plying 
their bows as they swam. The , men plunged in, 
the Hindus scurried away, and once more victory 



26 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

declared for the men of the north. In the next two 
campaigns Lahore, Gwaliar, and Kalinjar surren- 
dered to a conqueror who would take no denial, and 
in the winter of 1025-6 the sultan made his final 
march into Gujarat, crowned with the capture of 
Somnath, its costly temple and its wondrous god. 
There a hundred thousand pilgrims were wont to 
assemble, a thousand Brahmans served the temple 
and guarded its treasures, and hundreds of dancers 
and singers played before its gates. Within stood 
the famous linga,' a rude pillar-stone adorned with 
gems and lighted by jewelled candelabra which 
were reflected in the rich hangings, embroidered 
with precious stones like stars, that decked the 
shrine. 

So long as this worshipful emblem stood inviolate, 
Mahmud could not rest from his idol-breaking, nor 
his treasury boast the finest gems in India. . Hence 
his arduous march across the desert from Multan to 
Anhalvvara, and- on to the coast, fighting as he went, 
until he saw at last the famous fortress washed by 
the waves of the Arabian sea. Its ramparts swarmed 
with incredulous Brahmans, mocking the vain ar- 
rogance of the foreign infidels whom the god of 
Somnath would assuredly consume. The foreigners, 

* As has often been pointed out, the legend in Firishta's history 
that the priests tried to bribe Mahmud to spare the idol, and that he 
clove it in two with his sword, whereupon a vast hoard of jewels 
poured from its vitals, is manifestly absurd. The idol, as Sir W. W. 
Hunter observed, ' was merely one of the twelve lingas or phallic 
emblems erected in various parts of India,' and could not be cut by 
a sword ; though it is possible that a hiding-place was excavated 
in it. 



MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 2/ 

nothing daunted, scaled the walls ; the god remained 
dumb to the urgent appeals of his servants; fifty 
thousand Hindus suffered for their faith, and the 
sacred shrine was sacked to the joy of the true be- 





INDIAN BILLON CURRENCY OF MAHMUD, STRUCK AT MAHMUDPUR, 
A,H. 418 (a.D. 1027). 

lievers. The great stone was cast down, and its 
fragments carried off to grace the conqueror's palace. 
The temple gates were set up at Ghazni,^ and a 
million pounds' worth of treasure rewarded the 
iconoclast. 

The sack of Somnath has made Mahmud of Ghazni 
a champion of the faith in the eyes of every Muslim 
for nearly nine centuries, and the feat, signal enough 
in itself, has been embellished with fantastic legends. 
The difBculties of the outward march were renewed 
on the return ; the army was led astray by treacher- 
ous guides and almost perished in the waterless 
desert, from which it escaped only to fall into the 
hands of the predatory Jats of the Salt Range, who 
harrassed the exhausted troops as they toiled home- 

* The deodar gates at Agra, which were brought by Lord 
. Ellenborough from the tomb of Mahmud in 1S42 and were paraded 
as the gates of Somnath, are obviously later, and bear an epitaph 
of the sultan. 



28 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

wards laden with spoils. It was to punish their 
temerity that before the year was over Mahmud led 
his army for the last time into India. He is said to 
have built a fleet at Multan, armed it with spikes 
and rams, and placed twenty archers with naphtha 
bombs on each of his fourteen hundred boats, which 
eneaeed the vessels of the Tats, four thousand in 
number, and by rams and naphtha sank or burned 
their craft. Whatever really happened, we may be 
sure that there were never five thousand boats on 
the upper Indus, and that mountain tribes do not 
usually fight naval battles. Having chastised the 
Jats, whether by land or water matters little, Mah- 
mud retired to Ghazni, where he died four years 
later (30 April, 1030). 

In all these laborious though triumphant cam- 
paigns the thought of their home-coming must have 
been uppermost in every man's mind, from sultan to 
bhisti. There was no dream of occupying India. 
The very disunion and jealousy of the Hindu rajas, 
which smoothed the way to wide and successful 
forays, offered obvious obstacles to permanent an- 
nexation. Each victory meant no more than the 
conquest of one or more princes ; the rest were un- 
affected, and, since there was no single supreme head 
to treat with, the most complete success in the field 
did not imply the submission of the country. The 
mass of the people, no doubt, did submit, just as 
they have patiently submitted to a series of foreign 
rulers with immovable indifference ; but so long as 
there were chiefs in arms, followed by bands of des- 
perate Rajputs, an occupation of India was beyond 



MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 29 

the means of the forces of Ghazni. But Mahmud did 
not aim at permanent conquest. The time had not 
yet come when the Turks could think seriously of liv- 
ing in India. Their home was still beyond the passes, 
and in the latter years of his reign Mahmud had ex- 
tended his rule over the greater part of Persia, as far 
as the mountains of Kurdistan, — a land of Muslims 
and in every way, save wealth, infinitely preferable in 
Turkish eyes to sultry Hindustan, though not perhaps 
to the climbing terraced villages among the sweet 
green valleys and familiar crags of the Afghan hills. 
Mahmud had overrun northern India from the 
Indus to the Ganges, but his home was still Ghazni, 
hispatria was among the mountains. Here he stored 
his immense treasure, and here he presided over a 
stately and cultivated court. Like many a great 
soldier he loved the society of educated men. The 
man of action is every whit as inapt to ' suffer 
fools gladly' as the man of culture; and this restless 
adventurer, after sweeping like a pestilence for hun- 
dreds of miles across India, or pouncing like a hawk 
upon Khwarizm beside the sea of Aral, and then 
coursing south to Hamadhan almost within call 
of Baghdad itself, would settle down to listen to 
the songs of poets and the wise conversation of 
divines. If Mahmud is to Muslims for all time a 
model of a god-fearing king, zealous for the faith, his 
court has not less been held a pattern of humane 
culture, and it deserved its reputation. Napoleon 
imported the choicest works of art from the countries 
he subdued to adorn his Paris ; Mahmud did better, 
he brought the artists and the poets themselves to 



30 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

illuminate his court. From the cities of the Oxus 
and the shores of the Caspian, from Persia and 
Khurasan, he pressed into his service the Hghts of 
oriental letters, and compelled them, not unwillingly, 
to revolve round his sun like planets in his firmament 
of glory. The ruin of the Samanid dynasty, who 
had been noble fosterers of Persian literature, left 
many scholars and poets unprovided, and these came 
eagerly to the new home of learning. 

The names of the many luminaries who shone at 
the court of Ghazni may not convey very definite 
ideas to Western readers, but they are among the 
leaders of Eastern literature and science, and some 
have a reputation outside the circle of orientalists. 
Biruni, the astronomer, chronologist, and even stu- 
dent of Sanskrit ; Farabi, the philosopher, whom 
Mahmud prized the more since Avicenna himself 
refused to be lured to Ghazni ; Utbi, the historian 
and secretary to the sultan ; Baihaki, whose gossip- 
ing memoirs have earned him the title of ' the 
oriental Mr. Pepys ' ; Unsuri and Farrukhi and As- 
judi, among the earliest poets of the Persian revival, 
and above all Firdausi, the Persian Homer, in whose 
* Shah Nama ' the heroes of old Persian legend live 
for ever — these were among the men to whom Mah- 
mud was gracious and who in return made Ghazni 
and its master renowned beyond the fame of glorious 
war. There is no need to repeat here the oft-told 
story of Firdausi's wrath at the silver guerdon with 
which the sultan crowned the famous epic. Sixty 
thousand pieces of silver — even though the poet 
had been promised gold — represent something like 



MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 3 1 

^2500, and would be a welcome remuneration for a 
library of epics in the present day. Milton had to 
be content with the two hundred and fiftieth part of 
such a sum for ' Paradise Lost.' The notable part 
of the story is, not that the poet indignantly spurned 
the gift, threw it loftily among the menials, and 
then rewarded Mahmud's kindness and support by 
a scathing satire — such outbreaks belong to the genus 
irritabile — but that the great sultan at last forgave 
the insult and sent a second lavish gift, of 50,000 
guineas, to appease the offended poet in his exile. 
It was the usual irony of fate that the reward reached 
Firdausi's home in Khurasan just at the moment 
when his body was being borne to the grave. 

Though one must acquit the sultan of any want 
of appreciation of Firdausi's great work, or indeed 
of literary and scientific achievement in general, 
tradition will have it that he was avaricious ; and 
there is a quaint anecdote in Sa'di's ' Rose Garden ' 
— a tedious but renowned Persian classic — in which 
it is related how a certain king of Khurasan dreamed 
that he saw Mahmud a hundred years after his 
death, and perceived that, whilst his body had 
crumbled to dust, the eyes still rolled in their sock- 
ets, as if seeking the wealth that had vanished from 
their sight. Yet it is hard to reconcile this reputa 
tion for avarice with what is recorded of the sultan's 
gifts ; with his annual grant of two hundred thou- 
sand guineas to men of letters ; his foundation of a 
university at Ghazni, endowed with a great library, 
a museum, salaried professors, and pensions for 
scholars ; his sumptuous mosque of marble and 



32 MEDI^V^AL INDIA 

granite, furnished with gold and silver lamps and 
ornaments and spread with costly carpets ; or the 
aqueducts, fountains, cisterns, and other improve- 
ments with which he enriched his capital. If 
Mahmud was fond of money, assuredly he knew 
how to spend it wisely and munificently ; and the 
splendour of his courtiers' palaces, vying with his 
own, testified to the liberal encouragement of the 
arts which raised Ghazni, under the rule of the Idol- 
breaker, from a barrack of outlaws to the first rank 
among the many stately cities of the caliphate. 

The man who could so create and develop a 
centre of civilization was no barbarian. Like some 
other ugly men, Mahmud is said to have devoted 
himself to the cultivation of his mind in order to efface 
the impression of his physical defects ; but it was no 
ordinary mind that he had to work upon, and no 
mean genius that could expand a little mountain 
principality into an empire that stretched to the 
Caspian and Aral seas and almost to the Tigris, and 
that covered, at least for the time, half the vast 
plains and teeming population of Hindustan. Brief 
as was the occupation of most of this immense terri- 
tory, it was a stupendous feat of acquisition. He 
was aided, no doubt, by the dissensions of his neigh- 
bours ; the break-up of the Samanid kingdom and the 
divisions of the Buwaihid princes in Persia opened the 
road to annexation in the west, just as the jealousies 
of the Indian rajas favoured aggression in the east. 
But it must not be forgotten that Persia was full of 
Turkish chiefs of the same warlike temper as Mah- 
mud's forefathers, and that his northern frontier was 



MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 33 

perpetually menaced by the vigorous and aggres- 
sive tribes of Central Asia, against whom, neverthe- 
less, he was always able to hold his own. When 
Ilak Khan, the chief of the Turks on the laxartes, 
came south to invade Khurasan in 1006 with a great 
host of his dreaded horsemen, Mahmud did not 
evade the shock. He led his army in person against 
the troopers of the steppes, and after bowing to the 
earth in prayer, reciting his Muslim * Vater, ich rufe 
Dich' which he never forgot before a battle, he 
mounted his elephant and smote the enemy hip and 
thigh back to their own land. 

A great soldier, a man of infinite courage and in- 
defatigable energy of mind and body, Mahmud was 
no constructive or far-seeing statesman. We hear of 
no laws or institutions or methods of government 
that sprang from his initiative. Outward order and 
security was all he attempted to attain in his un- 
wieldy empire ; to organize and consolidate was not 
in his scheme. He left his dominions so ill knitted 
together that they began to fall asunder as soon as 
he was no longer alive to guard them by his vigilant 
activity. But so long as he lived he strove to gov- 
ern every part with even justice. The most sagacious 
and high-minded Asiatic statesman of the Middle 
Ages, the famous Seljuk vezir Nizam-al-mulk, in his 
treatise on the art of government, cites many anec- 
dotes of Mahmud's conscientious exercise of justice 
and the pains he took to protect his widely scattered 
subjects. 'Mahmud,' wrote the great vezir, ' was a 
just sovereign, a lover of learning, a man of generous 
nature and of pure faith.' 



^f^ 


i 


1 


M 


M 





CHAPTER III 

THE MEN OF THE MOUNTAIN 

GHAZNI AND GHOR 

I 030- I 206 

GIBBON sums up the history of Asiatic dynas- 
ties as * one unceasing round of valour, great- 
ness, discord, degeneracy, and decay.' We have 
seen the valour and the greatness of Mahmud : the 
rest was soon to follow. The kingdom he founded 
endured indeed for a century and a half after his 
death, but it diminished with every decade. It was 
not so much the result of the * discord and degener- 
acy' of his successors, though discord began at once 
in the rivalry between his sons, and degeneracy was 
shown in the luxury and effeminacy of the court. 
It was rather the inevitable consequence of the in- 
creasing pressure of the western Turks, the Ghuzz 
and other Turkman clans who were pouring into 
the pastures of Khurasan. What the adventurers of 
Ghazni had done, others of the same bold and capa- 
ble race might also achieve, and the pastoral Seljuks 
who now flocked from the Oxus lands southward 

34 



MAHMUD'S SUCCESSORS 35 

into Persia were led-by chiefs who proved themselves 
Mahmud's equals in generalship and his superiors in 
power of organization. Their history, which carried 
them from Samarkand to the shores of the ^gean, 
has nothing to say to the present subject, except in 
so far as their brilliant career of conquest cut off all 
Mahmud's Persian possessions in less than ten years 
after the Idol-breaker had passed away from the 
scene of his triumphs. By 1038 Tughril Beg the 
Seljuk was proclaimed king of Khurasan, and when 
Mahmud's son, Mas'ud, at last awakened to the dan- 
ger of the shepherd clans whose presence he had tol- 
erated within his borders, marched in 1040 to subdue 
the rebels, he was utterly defeated at Dandanakan 
near Merv, and thenceforward Persia was lost to the 
house of Ghazni. 

The barrier thus set up on the west, whilst it 
bounded the ambitions of Mahmud's successors, did 
not immediately throw them into the far more valu- 
able provinces of India. They continued to hold 
the Panjab, the only part of his Indian conquests 
that was permanently annexed, but even here their 
authority was uncertain, and when it was strongest 
under a firm governor there was most risk of separa- 
tion. A capable Turkish amir who had witnessed 
the successful rise of other Turks in Asia was likely 
to be tempted to convert his distant Indian province 
into a kingdom. Troubles of this kind began very 
soon. Mahmud had left Ali Ariyaruk as governor 
and commander-in-chief in India. Under Mas'ud, 
this viceroy's power became dangerous, and he was 
allured to Ghazni, where his numerous following of 



36 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

truculent retainers confirmed the fears of the court. 
Like many Turks, Ariyaruk had a weakness for 
drink, which proved his undoing. The wise vezir, 
Khwaja Ahmad Hasan Maimandi, who was in ori- 
ental phrase ' a great cucumber' or man of guile, led 
the unlucky general on ; the king sent him fifty 
flagons of wine when he was already excited ; the 
poor wretch staggered into the court, lured on by 
the conspirators, and there was an end of him. 

The whole miserable tragedy is described by the 
garrulous Baihaki, the chronicler of Mas'ud's court, 
with the vivid touch of an eyewitness. Such scenes 
were not uncommon at Ghazni, where zeal for the 
faith was often combined with a reckless disregard of 
the law of Islam which forbids the use of fermented 
liquor. It was not merely that the soldiery and 
their officers indulged in drunken brawls; the sultan 
Mas'ud himself used to enjoy regular bouts in which 
he triumphantly saw all his fellow topers * under the 
table.' We read in Baihaki's gossiping memoirs how 
'the amir' — the Ghazni king adopted this title like 
his modern representative the amir of Afghanistan- 
went into the Firozi Garden and sat in the Green 
Pavihon on the Golden Plain, where, after a sumptu- 
ous feast, the army passed before him in review : 
first the star of the crown prince Maudud, next the 
canopy and standards borne by two hundred slaves 
of the household, with jerkins of mail and long 
spears ; then many led horses and camels ; after 
which the infantry in their order, with banners and 
stars, and so forth. 

When they had all passed by, the serious business 



THE COURT AT GHAZNI ^y 

of the day began : ' let us to it without ceremony,' 
cried the amir: * we are come into the country, and 
we will drink.' Fifty goblets and flagons of wine 
were brought from the pavilion into the garden, and 
the cups began to go round. * Fair measure,' said 
the amir, 'and equal cups — let us drink fair.* They 
grew merry and the minstrels sang. One of the 
courtiers had finished five tankards — each held 
nearly a pint of wine — but the sixth confused him, 
the seventh bereft him of his senses, and at the 
eighth he was consigned to his servants. The doc- 
tor was carried off at his fifth cup ; Khalil Dawud 
managed ten, Siyabiruz nine, and then they were 
taken home ; everybody rolled or was rolled away, 
till only the sultan and the Khwaja Abd-ar-Razzak 
remained. The khwaja finished eighteen goblets 
and then rose, saying, ' If your slave has any more 
he will lose both his wits and his respect for your 
Majesty.' Mas'ud went on alone, and after he had 
drunk twenty-seven full cups, he too arose, called 
for water and prayer-carpet, washed, and recited the 
belated noon and sunset prayers together as soberly 
as if he had not tasted a drop ; then mounted his 
elephant and rode to the palace. ' I witnessed the 
whole of this scene with mine own eyes, I, Abu-1- 
Fazl,' says Baihaki. 

Such orgies were characteristic of the Turkish rul- 
ers of Ghazni. Even the great Mahmud had his 
drinking fits, which he excused on the ground that 
they afforded a rest to his people ; but his son 
Mas'ud carried them to far greater excess. Fortu- 
nately he had a remarkably able prime minister in 



38 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

Maimandi, who had served the father till he fell under 
his displeasure, and whom the son released from 
prison and restored to office with extraordinary 
marks of respect. The khwaja (to use the title 
given to the vezirs of Ghazni, though the word 
properly means a holy man, and has now degener- 
ated to nothing more respectable than * Mr.') made 
his formal re-entrance at the levee at noon, after 
careful consultation with the astrologers, who deter- 
mined the auspicious hour. He was dressed in scar- 
let cloth of Baghdad embroidered with delicate 
flowers, and wore a large turban of the finest muslin 
bordered with lace, a heavy chain, and a girdle weigh- 
ing a thousand gold pieces, studded with turquoises. 
The captain of the guard, sitting at the door of the 
robing-room, presented him according to custom 
with a piece of gold, a turban, and two immense 
turquoises set in a ring. On entering the presence, 
he was congratulated by the amir, and kissing the 
ground offered his sovereign a valuable pendent of 
pearls. Then Mas'ud gave him the signet of state, 
engraved with the royal seal, * that the people may 
know,' he said, ' that the khwaja's authority is next 
to my own.' The minister kissed hands, bowed 
to the earth, and retired, escorted by a splendid reti- 
nue, and all the world hastened to congratulate him 
and make him presents. Two days later he took his 
seat in his office. A fine cloth of brocade set with 
turquoises was spread for him, and on it he knelt 
and went through two bowings of prayer ; then call- 
ing for ink, paper, and sand, he wrote in Arabic a 
sentence of thanksgiving. All that day till nightfall 



THE COURT AT GHAZNI 39 

gifts were pouring in ; gold and silver, rich cloths, 
slaves of high price, pedigree horses and camels — and 
all were dutifully sent on to the amir, who marvelled 
why the khwaja would not keep them, and rewarded 
him with 10,000 gold pieces, half a million of silver 
from the treasury, ten Turkish slaves, four horses 
from the royal stable, and ten camels. 

Meanwhile the minister whom he had superseded 
presented the reverse of the glittering shield. Not 
only disgraced, Hasanak was accused of heresy, and 
sent to the scaffold. Clad in nothing but his turban 
and trousers, his hands clasped together, ' his body 
like shining silver, his face a picture,' he calmly faced 
his doom. All men wept for him and none would 
cast the fatal stones. The executioner spared him 
the indignity of lapidation by a friendly noose. The 
fallen vezir's head was served up in a dish at a feast, 
to the horror of the guests ; his body hung seven 
years on the gibbet ; but his mother, weeping be- 
neath, cried aloud in bitter irony, * What good for- 
tune was my son's ! Such a king as Mahmud gave 
him this world, and such a one as Mas'ud the next ! ' 

Such pictures of life at Ghazni are valuable for 
the history of India, since it was on the model of 
Mahmud and his successors that the later courts of 
Lahore, Agra, and Delhi were formed. It would be 
a mistake, however, to measure Mas'ud by his luxury 
and revels. He was no faineant son of his great 
father. His generosity won him the name of * the 
second Ali,' and he was so brave that they called 
him ' another Rustam,' after the famous hero of the 
* Shah Nama.' His father envied his strength, and 



40 ' MEDIEVAL INDIA 

it was said that he could fell an elephant at a blow. 
No other man could wield his battle-axe. He ex- 
celled, moreover, as a patron of letters, and was 
himself an architect of skill, who adorned his country 
with noble buildings. He also took a prudent in- 
terest in his Indian possessions, and personally 
interfered in the management of the Panjab. The 
viceroy who succeeded Ari37aruk proved even more 
ambitious. This Ahmad Niyaltagin had been Mah- 
mud's treasurer and had accompanied him on all his 
journeys and knew the ways and plans of the late 
king. They called him Mahmud's ' sneeze ' or alter 
ego. On his appointment as governor of Hindustan 
he was instructed by the vezir Maimandi not to med- 
dle with political or revenue matters, which belonged 
to the function of Kazi Shiraz, the civil administrator, 
but to keep to the duties of commander-in-chief. 
Besides these military and civil governors, there 
was the head of the intelligence department to 
whom all orders from the sultan and ministers were 
sent and who reported everything that occurred to 
his master. 'You two must not give trouble to the 
court,' continued the khwaja, 'what you have to 
write to me must be stated in detail in order to 
receive a distinct reply. His Majesty thinks it ad- 
visable to send with you some of the Dailami chiefs, 
to remove them to a distance from the court, since 
they are foreigners ; and also some suspected persons 
and refractory slaves. Whenever you go on a cam- 
paign you must take them with you, but be careful 
that they do not mingle with the army of Lahore, 
and let them not drink wine or play polo. Keep 



THE INDIAN PROVINCE 4 1 

Spies and informers to watch them, and never neglect 
this duty. These be the king's secret orders, not to 
be divulged.' To retain a hold on the new viceroy, 
his son was detained as a hostage. 

In spite of all these counsels, Niyaltagin quickly 
fell out with his civil colleague, and complaints 
reached Ghazni. Full of the example of his old 
master, he was not content with managing a mere 
province, but copied the Idol-breaker's daring raids, 
and actually surprised Benares. No Mohammedan 
army had ever before pushed so far east, and the 
great city on the Ganges with its forest of temples 
was a splendid prize. The invaders did not dare to 
hold it more than a few hours, lest they should be 
overwhelmed by the Hindus, and before midday 
they had plundered the markets and got off scot 
free with an immense booty. Niyaltagin was sus- 
pected of still more daring schemes ; he was said to 
be buying Turkish slaves secretly, and gave himself 
out as a son of sultan Mahmud. Not only was the 
army of Lahore devoted to him, but the Turkmans 
and adventurers of all sorts were flocking to his 
standard. The policy of sending suspected and dis- 
orderly persons to India was bearing fruit. In short 
everything was ripe for rebellion, and in the summer 
of 1033 iiews came that the viceroy was in open 
revolt, the kazi shut up in a fort, and all was turmoil 
and bloodshed. 

To restore order Mas'ud appointed Tilak the 
Hindu to take over the command in the Panjab. 
The other generals showed themselves backward in 
volunteering for the dangerous task, and Tilak's 



42 ' MEDIEVAL INDIA 

eager bid for the command pleased the sultan. The 
fact that a Hindu should have attained such a posi- 
tion shows how far the process of assimilation be- 
tween the Turks and the Indians had already gone. 
Tilak was the son of a barber, a good-looking, plausi- 
ble fellow, eloquent of speech, a fluent writer both 
in Hindi and Persian, and a master of dissimulation, 
which he had studied under the best professors in 
Kashmir, the home of lies. He is also described as 
' proficient in amours and witchcraft,' and everyone 
was in love with him. He gained a great influence 
over Mas'ud, who set him over the Indian troops, 
and he was equally intimate with the khwaja, who 
made him his confidential secretary and interpreter. 
He was granted the distinction of a state tent and 
parasol, kettledrums were beaten at his quarters, 
after the Hindu fashion, and his banners had gilt 
cusps. 

This Hindu paragon set out to chastise Niyaltagin. 
Matters were going badly and there was anxiety at 
Ghazni. The Seljuks were beginning to cause serious 
alarm in the west, and a battle had been lost at Kar- 
man in the eastern hills, where the sultan's Hindu 
troops, who formed half the cavalry, had behaved like 
poltroons and fled the field. When they came back, 
Mas'ud shut their officers up in the chancery, where 
six of them committed suicide with their daggers. 
'They should have used those daggers at Karman,' 
said the sultan. At last the news came that the bar- 
ber's son had routed Niyaltagin, and that the Jats had 
caught the fugitive viceroy and cut off his head, which 
they sold to Tilak for a hundred thousand pieces of 



THE INDIAN PROVINCE 43 

silver. The elated sultan vowed that he would him- 
self go to India and take the fort of Hansi, which he 
had once before attacked. The ministers in vain tried 
to dissuade him, urging the troubles in other parts 
of his empire. If the Seljuks should conquer Khu- 
rasan^ or take even a village there, they argued, * ten 
Holy Wars at Hansi would not compensate.' But 
he was immovable. 'The vow is upon my back,' he 
said, ' and accomplish it I will.' 

Leaving the khwaja as his deputy, and appointing 
Prince Maudud viceroy at Balkh, the sultan set out 
for India by way of Kabul in November, 1034. 
Falling ill on the road, he determined to renounce 
wine, threw all the liquor he had into the Jehlam, 
and broke his flagons. No drinking was allowed 
throughout the army. How slight was the hold of 
the Muslims on Hindustan may be realized from the 
fact that the march to Hansi (about two thirds of 
the distance from Lahore to Delhi) was regarded as 
a dangerous adventure. The fortress made a des- 
perate resistance, but was mined in five places, and 
stormed at the sword's point at the beginning of 
February. The priests and officers were killed, and 
the women, children, and treasure carried to Ghazni. 
Returning through deep snow, Mas'ud kept the 
New Year's spring festival at home, and amply re- 
paid himself for his abstinence on the march. 

The state of affairs on his return showed that the 
campaign with its insignificant result had been a 
mistake. The ministers had been right in urging 
him to go west instead of east. Khurasan was rap- 
idly falling into the hands of the Seljuks; western 



44 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Persia was throwing off the yoke of Ghazni ; the 
empire was breaking up. Mas'ud attempted too 
late to stem the tide. His generals were defeated, 
and his own last despairing effort near Merv in 1040, 
as has been related, ended in utter rout. In a panic 
he prepared to fly to India before the terror of a 
Seljuk invasion. The treasures were packed up, 
the court and the harim were equipped for the 
journey, and the whole army left Ghazni. As he 
crossed the Indus, the dishonoured prince was seized 
by mutineers, who set his brother on the throne — 
the brother he had blinded on his own accession, — 
and after a brief captivity in the fort of Kiri, Mas'ud 
was done to death in 1040. * Let wise men reflect 
upon this,' concludes Baihaki, ' and be well assured 
that man by mere labour and effort, notwithstanding 
all the wealth and arms and warlike stores he may 
possess, can in no wise succeed without the help of 
God Most High. . . . "Man cannot strive against 
fate." This prince spared no effort, and gathered 
vast armies. Though he was one who thought for 
himself and spent sleepless nights in devising plans, 
his affairs came to nought by the decree of the Al- 
mighty. God knoweth best.' 

The hasty flight to India was premature. The 
Seljuks were busy in subduing Persia, and left 
Ghazni undisturbed ; thither, after a while, Mas'ud's 
son returned with the army, and for more than a 
century the Ghaznawids, as his descendants are 
called, dwelt in their mountain city with gradually 
decaying power. Their names and dates are given 
in the table at the end of this volume, but their in- 



DEC A V OF GHAZNI 45 

dividual reigns are of little importance for the history 
of India. They are described as men of benevolent 
character and signal piety; and some of them, such 
as Ibrahim, devoted themselves to the improvement 
and good government of their subjects. The fact 
that Ibrahim and Bahram sat on the throne, the 
one for over forty, the other for thirty-five years, 
shows that there was peace and stability, at least 
in the central government. 

But peace was purchased at the cost of power. 
The later kings of Ghazni, learning by a series of de- 
feats that their western neighbours were not to be 
trifled with, made terms with the Seljuks and allied 
the two dynasties by politic marriages; thus Ghazni 
fell from the proud position of the capital of a king- 
dom to little more than a dependency of the empire 
of Malik Shah. The fratricidal struggles, which 
were a common feature of Ghaznawid successions, 
even brought these dangerous neighbours into the 
mountains, and in 11 16 we find the Seljuk Sanjar in 
temporary possession of Ghazni as the protector of 
Bahram against his brother Arslan Shah. 

There was little danger, however, of the enemy 
settling permanently in the Afghan country. There 
was more attractive land to the west, and a dynasty 
that had spread its dividing branches to the Medi- 
terranean and Damascus was not likely to be enam- 
oured of the crags and glades beneath the Hindu 
Kush. So long as the kings of Ghazni preserved an 
attitude of decorous deference, there was little fear 
of Seljuk aggression. Nor w^as there much danger 
of reprisals from the side of India. An army of 



4.6 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

80,000 Hindus did indeed seize Lahore in 1043 5 but 
the enemy hastily withdrew on the approach of the 
forces of Ghazni. The terror of Mahmud's cam- 
paigns had left too crushing an impression to permit 
the Indians to dream of serious retaliation. The 
Panjab remained a Muslim province, and a century 
later became the last refuge of Mahmud's de- 
scendants. 

The force that uprooted the Ghaznawids came 
neither from the east nor from the west. It grew 
up in their midst. In the rugged hills of Ghor, be- 
tween Ghazni and Herat, stood the castle of Firoz- 
koh, the * Hill of Victory,' where a bold race of 
Afghan highlanders followed the banner of the chief 
of Sur. The castle had submitted to Mahmud in 
lOio, but the conqueror left the native chief in tribu- 
tory possession, and the Suri horsemen eagerly took 
the sultan's pay and fought in his campaigns against 
the infidels. These fiery hillmen respected the great 
soldier, but for his weak successors they cared little, 
and feared them less. A conflict was brought about 
by the death of one of the Suri chiefs at the hands 
of Bahram Shah. The highlanders of Ghor marched 
to avenge his murder, and their rude vigour so over- 
mastered the troops of Ghazni, enfeebled by a cent- 
ury of inglorious ease, that Bahram and his army 
were driven pell-mell into India (i 148). It is true he 
returned with fresh forces in the winter, when snow 
cut off the usurpers from their headquarters in Ghor, 
but the vengeance he took upon the intruders and 
the execution of their leader only heated the fury of 
the chief of Firoz-koh. 



THE MEN' OF THE MOUNTAIN 47 

Two brothers of the princely race of Sur had now 
successively been slain by the king of Ghazni: a 
third brother avenged them. In 1155 Ala-ad-din 
Husain, reprobated for all time by the title of 
'World-burner' (Jahan-soz), burst into Ghazni on a 
wave of slaughter and destruction, slew the men 
without mercy, enslaved the women and children, 
and carried fire and sword throughout the land. Of 
all the noble buildings with which the kings had en- 
riched their stately capital hardly a stone was left to 
tell of its grandeur. The very graves of the hated 
dynasty were dug up and the royal bones scattered 
to the curs — but even Afghan vengeance spared the- 
tomb of Mahmud, the idol of Muslim soldiers. That 
tomb and two lofty minarets, at a little distance from 
the modern town, alone stand to show that Ghazni 
was. On one of the minarets one may still read the 
resonant titles of the Idol-breaker, and on the mar- 
ble tombstone an inscription entreats ' God's mercy 
for the great Amir Mahmud.* 

India was now to witness something very like a 
repetition of his swift irresistible raids. For more 
than a century there had been, if not peace, at least 
little war. The later kings of Ghazni had been mild 
unambitious rulers, and had left the Panjab very 
much to itself. Probably their Hindu troops and 
Hindu officials had to some extent Indianated them, 
and the last descendants of Mahmud made their 
home at Lahore without difficulty. The attempt of 
Bahram's son, Khusru Shah, to recover the command 
in Afghanistan utterly failed ; he found Ghazni and 
the other towns in ruins, the tribes disloyal, and the 



48 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

Ghuzz Turkmans overrunning the land. The com- 
paratively orderly rule of the kings of Ghazni had 
given place to anarchy, and so it remained for many 
years. Ala-ad-din the ' World-burner ' was content 
to rule his clan at Firoz-koh ; but after his death in 
I i6i, and that of his son two years later, his nephew 
Ghiyas-ad-din son of Sam became chief of Ghor, and 





COIN OF GHIYAS-AD-DIN, SHOWING SPEARMAN ON ELEPHANT. 

with his accession the Afghan highland ers entered 
upon a new phase of activity. Ghiyas-ad-din re- 
covered Ghazni from the mob of Ghuzz in 1 173-4, 
and established his brother Mu'izz-ad-din on the 
ruined throne of Mahmud. The two brothers exer- 
cised a joint sovereignty, but whilst the elder main- 
tained his hereditary chiefdom in his forefathers* 
castle of the ' Hill of Victory,' Mu'izz-ad-din, com- 
monly known as Mohammad Ghori, led a series of 
campaigns in India which recalled the glorious days 
of the Idol-breaker nearly two centuries before. 
Thirty years had Mahmud ravaged Hindustan from 
the Indus to the Ganges ; and for thirty years 
Mohammad Ghori harried the same country in the 
same way. 

His first object was to gather the Mohammedan 



MOHAMMAD GHORI 49 

provinces of India under his control. He began with 
the old Arab colony on the Indus, took Multan in 
1 175 from the heretical Karmathians, whom Mahmud 
had but temporarily dislodged, marched thence to 
Anhalwara in 1178, and by 11 82 he had subdued the 
whole of Sind down to Daibul and the sea-coast. 
Meanwhile his armies had not left the exiled king of 
Ghazni undisturbed. Peshawar was taken in 1 179, 
and Khusru Malik, the last of the Ghaznawids, a 
feeble gentle soul, utterly unequal to the task of 
mastering the anarchy which was ruining the rem- 
nant of his fathers' kingdom, hastened to give his 
son as a hostage and to offer deprecatory presents 
to the invader. The final catastrophe was thus 
delayed for a few years. In 1 184, however, Moham- 
mad Ghori ravaged the territory of Lahore and forti- 
fied Sialkot. This was coming to close quarters, and 
the king in desperation called in the help of the 
Gakkars and laid siege to the fortress. The Ghorian 
outmanoeuvred him by a trick, and getting between 
Khusru and his capital compelled him to surrender 
(1185 or 1 186). The prisoner and his son were 
taken to Firoz-koh, and confined in a fort, where 
after five years the last of the Ghaznawids were 
put to death. 

Mohammad Ghori had thus rid himself of all 
Muslim rivals in India : he could now turn to the 
Hindus. From the accounts of the Persian histori- 
ans it is clear that the process of assimilation which 
had been going on between the Turkish conquerors 
and the subject Hindus was now checked. The 
policy of employing native Indian regiments was 



50 MEDIyEVAL iNDlA 

abandoned, and the new invaders, Afghan MusHms, 
numerously supported by Turks, were full of relig- 
ious zeal and eager to send the ' grovelling crow-faced 
Hindus to the fire of hell/ Mohammad's first step 
was to seize and garrison Sirhind. This brought 
upon him the whole force of the Rajputs, led by 
Prithwi Raja, the chief of the Chohan dynasty that 
had succeeded the Tomaras in Delhi and Ajmir. 
This was a different kind of enemy from those the 
Afghans had been accustomed to meet. They were 
well acquainted with the modes of fighting of the 
Seljuks and other Turks of the Oxus land, but in 
the Rajputs they encountered a soldiery second to 
none in the world, a race of born fighters who fought 
to the death, many of whose principalities never 
submitted in more than name to Muslim rule. They 
formed the military caste of the ancient Hindu sys- 
tem, and preserved their old feudal system. 

* Each division,* as Elphinstone remarks, ' had its 
hereditary leader, and each formed a separate com- 
munity, like clans in other countries, the members 
of which were bound by many ties to their chief and 
to each other. As the chiefs of those clans stood in 
the same relation to the raja as their own retainers 
did to them, the king, nobility, and soldiery all made 
one body, united by the strongest feelings of kindred 
and military devotion. The sort of feudal system 
that prevailed among the Rajputs gave additional 
stability to this attachment, and all together pro- 
duced the pride of birth, the high spirit, and the 
romantic notions so striking in the military class of 
that period. Their enthusiasm was kept up by the 



MOHAMMAD GHORI 5 1 

songs of their bards, and inflamed by frequent con- 
tests for glory or for love. They treated women 
with a respect unusual in the East, and were guided, 
even towards their enemies, by rules of honour 
which it was disgraceful to violate.' With much of 
the chivalry, they had not the artificial sentiment of 
the knights of the * Faerie Queene,* and, save for 
their native indolence, they resembled rather the 
heroes of the Homeric poems, or of their own * Mahab- 
harata,' than those of the Round Table. No doubt 
they had degenerated in a long period of inglorious 
obscurity, but what the Rajputs are in the present day 
may teach us that in the twelfth century they were 
a brilliant and formidable array. 

Mohammad Ghori's first encounter with the Raj- 
puts was like to have been his last. The two armies 
met in 1191 at Narain, ten miles north of Karnal, on 
another part of the great plain which includes the 
historic field of Panipat, and on which the fate of 
India has been decided again and again. All the 
dash of the Muslim cavalry was powerless against 
the Hindus. The Afghan charges were met by skil- 
ful flanking movements, and the sultan found him- 
self cut off from his shattered wings and hemmed in 
by Rajput squadrons. He tried to save the day by 
personal gallantry, charged up to the standard of the 
raja's brother, the viceroy of Delhi, and with his 
spear drove his teeth down his throat ; but his 
rash exposure nearly cost him his life, and he was 
only saved by the devotion of a Khalji retainer 
who mounted behind him and carried him off the 
field. The sultan's retirement led to a panic. The 



52 



MEDIEVAL INDIA 



Muslims were soon in full retreat, pursued for forty 
miles by the enemy, and Mohammad did not even 
stop at Lahore, but hastened to cross the Indus into 
his own country. Never had the armies of Islam 
been so worsted by the infidels. 







■vjivi Kji- .'^j:>iiix. 



The sultan could not forget the disaster. At 
Ghazni, he confessed, * he never slumbered in ease 
nor waked but in sorrow and anxiety.' The next 
year saw him again in India, at the head of 120,000 
men, Afghans, Turks, and Persians. Prithwi Raja 
had taken Sirhind, after a year's siege, and awaited 
his enemy on the same field of Narain. The sultan 



THE RAJPUTS 53 

had profited by his former lesson. His cavalry in 
four divisions of ten thousand each harassed the 
Rajputs^ on all sides, and when he found their 
famous soldiery still unbroken he lured them to dis- 
order by a feigned retreat. Then, taking them at a 
disadvantage, he charged at the head of twelve thou- 
sand picked horsemen in steel armour, and 'this 
prodigious army once shaken, like a great building, 
tottered to its fall and was lost in its own ruins.' 
Many of the Rajput chiefs were killed in the battle. 
Prithwi Raja himself mounted a horse and fled, but 
was captured near Sirsuti and ' sent to hell.' 

The result of this victory was the annexation of 
Ajmir, Hansi, and Sirsuti, ruthless slaughter and a 
general destruction of temples and idols and build- 
ing of mosques (1192). Ajmir was left in charge 
of a son of the late raja, as a vassal of the sultan, 
and Kutb-ad-din Aybek, a slave of Mohammad 
Ghori, was appointed viceroy of India, where after 
his master's death he founded the Kingdom of 
Delhi. There was much, however, to be done be- 
fore there could be any talk of kingship. Delhi and 
Koil indeed fell before the attacks of Kutb-ad-din the 
same year, but beyond them lay the dominions of 
the powerful Rathors, who had become rajas of Ka- 
nauj on the downfall of the Tomaras. Mohammad, 
returning from Ghazni, himself led the campaign 
against them in the following year, and, after a 
crushing defeat on the Jumna between Chandwar 
and Etawa, the Rathors fled south to found a new 
principality at Marwar, and Kanauj and Benares be- 
came part of the empire of Ghor. The Muslims 



54 MEDIAZVAL INDIA 

were now in Bihar, and it was not long before they 
found their way into Bengal. Whilst Kutb-ad-din 
was reducing the cities further west, another general, 
Mohammad Bakhtiyar, pushed his way to Oudh and 
on to Lakhnauti, then the capital of Bengal, and 
thus brought the extreme east of Hindustan under 
Muslim rule. 

Meanwhile the sultan or his viceroy had con- 
quered, if they had not subdued, the greater part of 
northern India. Gwaliar, Badaun, Kalpi, Kalinjar, 
Anhalwara, had fallen, and if Mohammad had 
been content with an Indian empire he might have 
enjoyed his wish. But the kings of Ghazni were 
ever looking backward towards the west, where Mah- 
mud had held so vast a sway. Tradition led them 
to long for the orchards and fat pastures of the 
Oxus and the rich cities and luxury of Persia. The 
wealth of India could not satisfy these hungry 
hillmen. Mohammad Ghori must needs invade 
Khwarizm, the modern Khiva, where his momentary 
success was followed by such disastrous defeat that 
he burned his baggage, purchased his bare life, and 
fled (1203). Such an overthrow means anarchy in 
an oriental state. Everywhere the tribes and gov- 
ernors rose in revolt. Ghazni shut its gates in its 
sultan's face, Multan proclaimed a new king, the 
Gakkars seized Lahore and laid waste the Panjab ; 
the wide dominion of the house of Ghor broke 
asunder. The recovery of his shattered kingdom 
was Mohammad's greatest feat. Kutb-ad-din re- 
mained true to him, and so did several cities held by 
the sultan's kindred. Mohammad swept down upon 



MOHAMMAD GHORI 55 

Multan and regained it ; Ghazni repented ; the Gak- 
kars were subdued and even nominally converted. 
But conversion did not wipe out the blood-feud, and 
when the sultan set out once more to gather forces 
for another effort to realize his useless dream of 
western empire, he was murdered in his tent beside 





SILVER COIN OF MOHAMMAD GHORI, STRUCK AT GHAZNI, 
A.H. 596 (a.D. II99). 

the Indus by a band of Gakkars who had the deaths 
of their kinsfolk to avenge (1206). 

Compared with Mahmud, the name of Moham- 
mad Ghori has remained almost obscure. He was 
no patron of letters, and no poets or historians vied 
with one another to praise his munificence and 
power. Yet his conquests in Hindustan were wider 
and far more permanent than Mahmud's. A large 
part of these conquests were of course partial, and 
there were still revolts to be crushed and chiefs to 
be subdued : India was not to be subjugated in a 
generation. But the conquest was real and perma- 
nent, and though Mohammad was no Indian sov- 
ereign, but still king of Ghazni with eyes turned 
towards Persia and the Oxus, he left a viceroy in 
Hindustan who began the famous Slave dynasty, 



56 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

the first of the many MusHm kings that have ruled 
India. 

Of the two tides of Mohammedan invasion that 
surged into India, Mahmud's had left little trace. 
It had been but a series of triumphant raids, and 
when its violence was spent scarcely enough 
strength remained to hold a single province. That 
province however had been held, not without a 
struggle, and in the Panjab Mohammad Ghori found 
the 7C0V 0r(^, the necessary leverage, whence to 
bear upon a wider territory than his precursor. He 
rose from even smaller beginnings than Mahmud, 
but his followers possessed the same hardihood and 
power of endurance as the earlier invaders from the 
same mountain valleys, and they carried their arms 
further and left surer footprints. The dynasty of 
Ghor relapsed into the insignificance of a highland 
chiefdom after its great sultan's death ; but the 
dominion it had conquered in India was not lost to 
Islam. It was consolidated under other rulers, and 
from the days of Mohammad Ghori to the catas- 
trophy of the Indian mutiny there was always a 
Mohammedan king upon the throne of Delhi. 




BOOK II 
THE KINGDOM OF DELHI 

1 206- 1 5 26 



57 



CHAPTER IV 



THE SLAVE KINGS 



THE TURKS IN DELHI 



I 206- I 290 



AT length in 1206 India had a Mohammedan 
king of its own, ruHng not from an outside 
capital but in India itself. Mohammad Ghori's vice- 
roy Aybek was the first of the thirty-four Muslim 
kings who ruled at Delhi from the beginning of the 
thirteenth century to the invasion of Babar in 1526. 
These thirty-four kings fall into five successive dy- 
nasties. First came the Slave Kings, descended from 
Aybek the slave of Ghori, or from Aybek's slaves • 
these were all Turks. Next followed the Khaljis, 
probably Turks in origin but essentially Afghans in 
association and character. The third was the Turk- 
ish house of Taghlak. The irruption of Timur, who 
burst into India in 1398, put an end to the domina- 
tion of the Taghlak princes, and broke up the King- 
dom of Delhi; but the dynasty of the Sayyids or 
* nobles ' — so called because, though natives of India, 
they claimed Arabian descent from the family of the 

59 



6o MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Prophet Mohammad — assumed authority at the 
capital. The fifth dynasty was that of the Afghan 
Lodis, who held what remained of the kingdom 
until defeated by the Emperor Babar on the fatal 
field of Panipat. 

In tracing the history of these three centuries of 
predominant Turkish rule in India we shall have 
little to say about anything but a few conspicuous 
men. History in the East does not mean the growth 
of constitutions, the development of civic ' rights,' 
the vindication of individual liberty, or the evolution 
of self-government. These are Western ideas which 
have no meaning in India. If translated into Hin- 
dustani they represent nothing that the natural 
Hindu comprehends or desires. The European as- 
sumption that every man is more or less competent 
to carry on the work of government is flatly denied in 
the East. The Western panacea of self-government 
possesses no attraction to the unsophisticated ori- 
ental. To the Indian, power is a divine gift, to be 
exercised absolutely by God's anointed, and obeyed 
unquestioned by everyone else. A king who is not 
absolute loses in the oriental mind the essential 
quality of kingship. Every Eastern people, if left to 
itself, sets up a despot, to whose decrees of life and 
death it submits with the same resignation and as- 
sent that it shows towards the fiat of destiny. In the 
East Vetat cest tnoi, the King is the State, its minis- 
ters are his instruments, its people are his slaves. 
His worst excesses and most savage cruelties are en- 
dured in the same way as plague and famine: all 
belong to the irresistible and inscrutable manifesta- 



KINGSHIP IN INDIA 6 1 

tions of the divine order of the universe. The only 
kind of king that the East tolerates with difificulty is 
the faineant. Let him be strong and masterful, and 
he may do as he pleases ; but the weak sovereign 
rarely keeps his throne long, and keeps it only by 
force of traditional loyalty or dread of the unknown 
risks of revolution. 

In the history of Mohammedan India, then, we 
have to do with kings and their works. They are 
surrounded by a court of officers and functionaries, 
who are raised or displaced at the royal pleasure. 
Beneath them toil incessantly the millions of pa- 
tient peasants and industrious townsfolk. These 
people have not changed in any essential character- 
istic since the dawn of history. They have wit- 
nessed the successive inroads of horde after horde of 
invading foreigners, and have incorporated some 
part of each new element into their ancient system. 
They have obeyed the king, whether Aryan, Hun, 
Greek, Persian, Rajput, Turk, Afghan, Mongol, or 
English, with the same inveterate resignation, con- 
tented or at least not very discontented with their 
immemorial village system and district government, 
which corrected to some extent the contrasts of suc- 
cessive foreign innovators. Whatever king may 
rule, — so the Indian would resignedly argue — there 
will still be plague and famine and constant but not 
energetic labour, and so long as the rice and millet 
grow and salt is not too dear, life is much the same 
and the gods may be propitiated. The difference 
caused in the rayat's life by a good or a bad king is 
too slight to be worth discussing. The good and the 



62 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

ill are alike things of a day ; they pass away as the 
life passes when the king decrees a death or mas- 
sacres a village ; but others follow and the world 
goes on, and the will of God is eternal. 

The kings whose deeds are to be described were 
foreigners in origin, but this made little if any differ- 
ence in the respect which their authority implied. 
There is of course as great a contrast between a 
Muslim Turk and a Hindu Rajput as between a 
Scottish Presbyterian and a Spanish Catholic ; but 
the reverence paid to power overbore all distinctions 
of race. The caste system had accustomed Indians 
to immovable barriers between classes, and though 
the Muslim kings had no claim of pedigree and not 
much distinction of ceremonial purity, they formed 
in a way a caste, the caste of Islam, a fellowship of 
equal brotherhood unsurpassed in coherence and 
strength in all the world. The great power of Islam 
as a missionary influence in India has been due to 
the benefits of this caste. The moment an Indian 
accepts Islam he enters a brotherhood which admits 
no distinctions of class in the sight of God, and 
every advancement in office and rank and marriage 
is open to him. To those outside Islam the yoke of 
the alien ruler was no worse than that of the native 
raja. Both represented a separate caste, and both 
belonged to the inscrutable workings of providence.^ 

The essential union of the Muslims as a conquer- 
ing caste was indeed the chief cause of their success- 
ful hold of the vastly preponderating multitudes 

' Compare the suggestive thoughts on this subject in Mr. Mere^ 
piTH Townsend's Asia and Europe (1901). 



THE CASTE OF ISLAM 63 

they governed. Their power in India was always 
that of an armed camp, but it was a camp in which 
all the soldiers fought shouldfer to shoulder for the 
same cause, in which all were equal brothers ; and it 
had the immense resource of being able to draw con- 
tinually and in unlimited numbers upon the recruit- 
ing grounds of the Mohammedan countries behind 
it, which were always reinforcing their co-religionists 
by fresh bodies of hardy adventurers, free from the 
lethargy of self-indulgence that too often etiolates the 
exotic in the Indian forcing-house. The very bigotry 
of their creed was an instrument of self-preservation ; 
in mere self-defence they must hold together as God's 
elect in the face of the heathen, and they must win 
over proselytes from the Hindus, whether by per- 
suasion or by the sword, to swell their isolated mi- 
nority. Hence the solidarity and the zeal which, 
added to their greater energy and versatility, gave 
the Muslims their superiority over natives who were 
sometimes their equals in courage, though never in 
unity, in enthusiasm, or in persistence. The clan- 
nishness of the Hindus, their devotion to local chiefs, 
and their ineradicable jealousies of each other, pre- 
vented anything approaching national patriotism ; 
and their religious system, which rested upon birth 
and race and class, whilst precluding the very idea 
of proselytism, deprived them of the fanatical zeal of 
the missionary. Moreover they were always on the 
defensive, and except behind ramparts the defensive 
position is the weaker part. The Muslims, inspired 
by the spirit of adventure, of militant propaganda, 
of spreading the Kingdom of God upon earth, as well 



64 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

as seizing the goods of this world, had every advan- 
tage over the native Hindus, and when the invaders 
were led by kings who embodied these masterful 
qualities their triumph was assured. 

The example of the warrior king, like Mohammad 
Ghori, bred heroic followers. Whatever may be said 
against the slave system, in the East it tends to the 
production of great men. While a brilliant ruler's 
son is apt to be a failure, the slaves of a real leader 
of men have often proved the equals of their master. 
The reason of course is that the son is a mere 
speculation. He may or may not inherit his father's 
talents ; even if he does, the very success and power 
of the father create an atmosphere of luxury that 
does not encourage effort ; and, good or bad, the son 
is an immovable fixture : only a father with an ex- 
ceptional sense of public duty would execute an in- 
competent son to make room for a talented slave. 
On the other hand the slave is the ' survival of the 
fittest ' ; he is chosen for physical and mental abili- 
ties, and he can hope to retain his position in his 
master's favour only by vigilant effort and hard 
service. Should he be found wanting, his fate is 
sealed. 

The famous Seljuk empire furnished a notable 
example of the influence of a great man upon his 
slaves. The mamluk guard of the emperor Malik 
Shah formed a school of capable rulers. * However 
servile in origin, the pedigree carried with it no sense 
of ignominy. In the East a slave is often held to be 
better than a son, and to have been the slave of 
Malik Shah constituted a special title of respect. 



THE SLAVE KINGS 65 

The great slave vassals of the Seljuks were as proud 
and honourable as any Bastards of mediaeval aristo- 
cracy ; and when they in turn assumed kingly pow- 
ers, they inherited and transmitted to their lineage 
the high traditions of their former lords.' ^ The 
same process was seen in the great slave leaders who 
were among the earliest Mamluk Sultans of Egypt 
in the thirteenth century ; and an equally conspicu- 






mim' 




BILLON COIN OF YILDIZ, SHOWING CHOHAN HORSEMAN. 

ous example is found in India in the slaves of Mo- 
hammad Ghori. When someone condoled with 
him on his lack of male offspring to carry on his line, 
he replied ' Have I not thousands of children in my 
Turki slaves?' Four of his mamluks rose to high 
command : Yildiz in the Afghan mountains, Ku- 
bacha on the Indus, Bakhtiyar in Bengal, Aybek at 
Delhi. Of these Kutb-ad-din Aybek^ was the chief. 
Brought as a child, like so many slaves of the period, 
from Turkistan to Khurasan he was well-educated 



' Lane-Poole, Saladin, 22, 23. 

^ Aybek means ' Moon-lord,' probably with reference to personal 
beauty. The common statement that it signified 'maimed,' on ac- 
count of his loss of a finger, is due to a misreading of a passage in 

the Tabakat-i-Nasiri. 
6 



66 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

by his owner, the chief kazi of Naishapur, and when 
grown up he was sent in a merchant's caravan to 
Ghazni, where he was purchased by Mohammad 
Ghori. His brave and generous character soon won 
him favour, and rising step by step to be master of 
the horse, he accompanied the sultan in his cam- 
paigns, was taken prisoner in Khwarizm and fortu- 
nately recaptured ; and after the defeat of Prithwi 
Raja of Ajmir the government of India was confided 
to the successful slave. 

Aybek's chief exploits were achieved during his 
viceroyalty. Hansi, Mirat, Delhi (1191), Rantam- 
bhor, Koil fell before his assault, and he led the van- 
guard of the Ghorian army in 1 194 when it conquered 
Benares. When the sultan returned to Ghazni after 
this crowning triumph, it was Aybek who subdued 
the ill-timed revolt of the vassal raja of Ajmir. 
Master and slave humbled the pride of Gwaliar, that 
' pearl of the necklace of the castles of Hind,' and 
compelled the raja Solankhpal to render tribute in 
1 196 ; and in the following year Aybek won a signal 
victory over the vast array of the prince of Anhal- 
wara, who left fifty thousand dead on the field, while 
twenty thousand prisoners and immense booty fell 
into the Muslims' hands. Thus the kingdom of Gu- 
jarat came under the power of Ghor. Kalinjar, the 
seat of the Chandel rajas, after a desperate resistance, 
fell before Aybek's attack in 1202 ; its temples were 
turned into mosques and fifty thousand men put on 
the * collar of slavery.' At the same time Moham- 
mad Bakhtiyar, a fellow marshal (Sipahsalar), who for 
the first time had carried the Muslim arms across 




THE KUTB MINAR AT DELHI. 



67 



6S MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Bihar into Bengal, and made Lakhnauti his capital, 
brought his spoils and his homage to the great vice- 
roy. The energy of Aybek and Bakhtiyar had com- 
pleted the successes of Mohammad Ghori, and nearly 
all Hindustan north of the Vindhya range was under 
Muslim sway. 

What that sway meant we know only from the 
chroniclers of the conquering races. According to 
Hasan Nizami, who wrote at Delhi in the midst of 
these campaigns and knew Aybek well, the viceroy 
administered his wide provinces ' in the ways of jus- 
tice ' and ' the people were happy.' Tribute and 
military service were exacted as the price of tolera- 
tion, and Aybek's impartiality is extolled in the 
metaphorical phrase that ' the wolf and the sheep 
drank water out of the same pond.' * The reads 
were freed from robbers,' and the Hindus both ' high 
and low were treated with royal benignity,' which 
however did not prevent the viceroy from making an 
immense number of slaves in his wars. So muni- 
ficent was he that he was called ' Lakhbakhsh ' or 
* Giver of lacs.' At Delhi he busied himself in build- 
ing the great mosque or Jami' Masjid and the fam- 
ous minaret known after his surname as the Kutb 
Minar, which stood originally 250 feet high and is the 
tallest minaret in the world. Its boldly jutting bal- 
conies, alternate angular and rounded fluting, and 
fine Arabic inscriptions set off the natural contrasts 
of white marble and red sandstone of which it is 
built. The mosque, like Aybek's other mosque at 
Ajmir, was constructed of the materials of demol- 
ished temples, and the ornament was supplied from 



AYBEK 



69 



the idols of the Hindus. Aybek was a staunch 
MusHm, and though policy dictated toleration in the 




THE GREAT MOSQUE OF AJMIR, WITH INSCRIPTION OF ALTAMISH. 

case of powerful Hindu vassals, he was a mighty 
* fighter in the way of God.' ' The realm was filled 
with friends and cleared of foes,' says a contemporary 



70 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

chronicler, ' his bounty was continuous, and so was 
his slaughter.' 

Aybek survived his master only a few years, and 
his own full sovereignty as the first Slave sultan of 
Delhi ended in 12 lo, when he died from a fall from 
his horse whilst playing mall or polo, an ancient and 
favourite sport in Persia and India. A time of con- 
fusion followed. An incompetent son opened the 
way to rivals. Kubacha held Multan and Sind to 
the mouth of the Indus and strove with Yildiz for 
the possession of Lahore ; Bakhtiyar's successor was 
supreme in Bihar and Bengal ; and Shams-ad-din 
Altamish,' a slave of Aybek, deposing his master's 
son, took the throne of Delhi for himself. Alta- 
mish is the true founder of the dynasty of the Slave 
Kings, which Aybek did not live long enough to 
consolidate. The new leader was a Turk of Albari, 
unequalled (says his contemporary, Minhaj-as-siraj) 
' in beauty, virtue, intelligence, and nobleness ' of 
character. * No king so benevolent, sympathetic, 
reverent to the learned and the old, ever rose by his 
own efforts to the cradle of empire.' Taken to Ghazni 
in his youth, he was purchased by Aybek, who car- 
ried him to Delhi, made him captain of his guard, 
and eventually governor of Gwaliar (i 196). What 
Aybek, had been to Mohammad Ghori, Altamish 
was to Aybek, who used him like a son. When 
Aybek's real son proved unfit to rule, the chiefs of 
the army begged Altamish to take the throne. 

^ Altamish or Altamsh is the Persian spelling, but the original 
Turki name, as written on coins and inscriptions and transliterated 
into Nagari, was probably Il-tutmish, ' Hand-grasper,' 



MONGOL INVASION 7 1 

It was a stormy advent. Yildiz indeed, ruling at 
Ghazni, saw the wisdom of conciliation, and sent 
him the sceptre and umbrella of state ; but Kubacha 
refused to surrender Lahore, and it was not till 12 17 
that Altamish obtained possession of the northern 
Panjab by the defeat of his rival. These contests 
were as nothing compared with the tumult to come. 
A new and incalculable danger threatened all Asia. 
The hordes of th.Q Jiage Hum Dei, Chingiz Kaan, had 
begun to overflow their steppes ; and the first sign 
of the Mongols' approach was the flight of Yildiz 
into India, driven by the broken armies of the 
Khwarizm Shah, themselves flying panic-stricken be- 
fore the victorious savages. One after the other 
they came down from the mountain passes : first the 
Turkish governors, then the Khwarizmian fugitives, 
and hard on their heels the dreaded Mongols. Jalal- 
ad-din, the last shah of Khwarizm and heir of an 
empire which once spread from Otrar and Khiva, 
Samarkand and Bukhara, to Herat and Isfahan, re- 
treated fighting his way to the Indus, whither 
Chingiz pursued him, beat him (1221), and drove 
him still dauntless into Sind. The adventures of 
this heroic prince, who battled his way back through 
Persia only to succumb at last after a decade of dar- 
ing energy, form a stirring page of romantic history. 

The tumult was tremendous, but the storm passed 
away as quickly as.it came. The Mongols wintered 
and then retired : fortunately for India their eyes 
were set westward. Out of this turmoil Altamish 
emerged stronger than before. Yildiz and Kubacha 
disappeared from history : the one died in prison ; 



72 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

the other, after many a struggle with the forces, 
Mongol and Khwarizmian,^ that in turn ravaged his 
border-provinces, at last saw his chief cities falling 
before the siege of Altamish, and in his desperation 
drowned himself in the Indus (1230). Before this 
the king of Delhi had marched into Bengal (1225) 
and received the homage of the governor, who had 
not only attained independent power but proclaimed 
it by his coinage.^ The whole of the dominions of 
Aybek were now in the hands of his slave, and in 
1234 expeditions into Malwa as far as Ujjayn com- 
pleted the submission of all India north of the 
Vindhyas. 

The seal was set on a career of unvaried success 
v/hen the caliph of Baghdad (in 1229) sent an em- 
bassy of state to invest Altamish with the robe of 
office as recognized sovereign of India, Thence- 
forth the king inscribed upon his coins not only the 
proud legend ' The Mighty Sultan, Sun of the Em- 
pire and the Faith, Conquest-laden, Il-tutmish,' but 
also ' Aid of the Commander of the Faithful,' Nasir- 
Amir-al-Muminin. The broad silver pieces on which 
these titles appeared were new to the currency of 
India. Hitherto the invaders had issued small bil- 
lon coins of the native form, inscribed with their 
names in the Nagari and sometimes in Arabic 
character, and bearing symbols familiar to the Hin- 

^ The Khwarizm troops under their general Hasan Karlagh and 
his son Mohammad held Sind until at least 1260. 

2 See the coins of Ghiyas-ad-din Iwaz of 1223 in Lane-Poole, 
Catalogue of Indian Coins in the British Museum : Mohammedan 
States, p. 9, and Introd., p. x. 



ALT A MI SH 



n 



dus, such as the bull of Siva and the Chohan 
horseman. Altamish was the first to introduce a 
purely Arabic coinage, such as had long been in use 
in countries further west, and to adopt as his stand- 
ard coin the silver tanka, the ancestor of the rupee, 
weighing 175 grains, and thus exactly corresponding 
to our florin. Gold tankas of the same weight were 
introduced somewhat later by Balban. 

For ten years after the death of Altamish in 1236 
his kingdom suffered from the weakness and de- 








SILVER COIN OF ALTAMISH. 



pravity of his sons. The first, Firoz Shah, was a 
handsome, generous, soft-hearted, convivial, young 
fool, who spent his money upon singers and buffoons 
and worse, and swaying drunk upon his elephant 
through the bazars showered red gold upon the 
admiring crowd. * God forgive him,' says the chron- 
icler of his time, ' sensuality, frivolity, and the com- 
pany of the lewd and base bring an empire to ruin.' 
His mother, a Turkish slave, managed the govern- 
ment, whilst her son wantoned, till her savage 
cruelty caused a general revolt. The pair were 
imprisoned, and Firoz died after a nominal reign of 
not quite seven months. Hjs sister Raziyat-ad-din 



74 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

(* Devoted to the Faith ') was chosen in his place. 
She was the only child after her father's heart. 
* Sultan Raziya/ says the same chronicler, who knew 
her, 'was a great monarch: wise, just, generous, a 
benefactor to her realm, a dispenser of equity, the 
protector of her people, and leader of her armies ; 
she had all kingly qualities except sex, and this 
exception made all her virtues of no effect in the 
eyes of men, may God have mercy upon her!' 
Altamish had perceived her great qualities, trusted 
her with power, and named her his heir. When the 
astonished ministers remonstrated on the unprece- 
dented idea of setting a woman on a Muslim throne, 
he said, ' My sons are given over to the follies of 
youth : none of them is fit to be king and rule this 
country, and you will find there is no one better able 
to do so than my daughter.' 

By a curious coincidence three Muslim queens, 
the only three women who were ever elected to the 
throne in the Mohammedan East, reigned in the 
thirteenth century. Shajar-ad-durr, the high-spirited 
slave-wife of Saladin's grand-nephew, the woman 
who defeated the crusade of Louis IX and after- 
wards spared the saintly hero's life, was queen of 
the Mamluks in Egypt in 1250. Abish, the last 
of the princely line of Salghar, patrons of Sa'di, ruled 
the great province of Fars for nearly a quarter of a 
century during the troubled period of Mongol su- 
premacy. Raziya, daughter of Altamish, less fortu- 
nate, sat on the throne of Delhi for only three years 
and a half (1236-40). She did her best to prove her- 
self a man, wore manly dress, and showed her face 



QUEEN RAZIYA 



n 



fearlessly as she rode her elephant at the head of 
her troops. But nothing could convince the Turkish 
chiefs that a woman could or should lead them. 




TOMB OF ALTAMISH AT DELHI. 



The Arabian Prophet had said truly that 'the most 
precious thing in the world is a virtuous woman,' 
but he had also said that * the people that makes a 
woman its ruler will not find salvation.' Raziya was 
clearly impossible, and her preference for the Abys- 
sinian Yakut, though perfectly innocent so far as 
any evidence goes, roused the jealousy of the domi- 
nant Turks. 



^6 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

The slave system had grown stronger by the suc- 
cessful careers of Aybek and Altamish. The latter 
had formed a corps of Turkish mamluks known as 
' the Forty,' and these men, profiting by the removal 
of the master's hand, shared among themselves the 
wealth and power of the kingdom. The free-born 
men who had served Altamish with great ability in 
various ofiBces were removed, and all control was in 
the hands of * the Forty.' These khans ^ were not 
likely to endure the insult of seeing an Abyssinian 
set over them by a partial woman. They rose in 
rebellion, and though at first the gallant queen made 
head against them, she was finally taken prisoner by 
the rebel governor Altuniya (1240). Even then she 
subdued her captor and became his queen, and the 
two set forth to regain her throne. But her brother 
was already proclaimed in her stead ; her army was 
beaten ; and Raziya and her husband, deserted by 
their troops, fled into the jungles and were killed. 

There is no need to dwell upon the brief and in- 
glorious reigns of Bahram and Mas'ud, the one a 
brother, the other a nephew of Raziya. The former 
is described as ' a fearless, intrepid, and sanguinary 
man: still he had some virtues — he was shy and 
unceremonious, and had no taste for gorgeous at- 
tire.' His two years of power were spent in plots 
and counterplots, treacherous executions, and cruel 
murders, and he was killed after a siege of Delhi by 
the exasperated army. The next, Mas'ud, * acquired 

^ 'Khan' is a Persian term for 'lord,' answering to the Arabic 
' amir.' In India it was specially applied to Turkish and Afghan 
nobles or officers, and still implies Afghan race though not rank. 



BALBAN 'J'J 

the habit of seizing and killing his nobles,' and spent 
his time in abandoned pleasures. It was no time 





SILVER COIN OF QUEEN RAZIYA, STRUCK AT LAKHNAUTI. 

for weak rulers. The Mongols were again on the 
march ; they had massacred the inhabitants of La- 
hore in December, 1241, and established themselves 
on the Indus with every appearance of permanent 
conquest.^ 

At this juncture another remarkable slave came 
to the rescue of the state. The nominal king was 
Nasir-ad-din, a third son of Altamish ; but the reins 
of power were in the strong hands of Balban. He 
was a Turk of the same district as Altamish and 
boasted his descent from the Khakans of Albari ; 
his father ruled ten thousand kibitkas, and his kins- 
men still governed their ancestral tribes in Turkistan. 
But Balban was not to enjoy such obscure distinc- 
tion. 'The Almighty desired to grant a support to 
the power of Islam and to the strength of the Mo- 
hammedan faith, to extend His glorious shadow over 

' E. Thomas, Chronicles of the Pathan Kuigs, 121, has conclu- 
sively shown that the statement that the Mongols reached Lakhnauti 
in Bengal is due to a misreading of the Persian text of the TabakaU 
i-Nasiri. 



78 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

it, and to preserve Hindustan within the range of 
His favour and protection. He therefore removed 
Balban in his youth from Turkistan, and separated 
him from his race and kindred, from his tribe and 
relations, and conveyed him to this country for the 
purpose of curbing the Mongols.' In short Balban 
was kidnapped or taken prisoner as a child and 
brought to India, where he was purchased by Alta- 
mish. The story runs that the sultan refused at first 
to buy him, because of his shortness and ugliness. 
* Master of the world,' cried the slave, * for whose 
sake have you bought these other servants? ' * For 
mine own,' said Altamish, laughing. '• Then buy me 
for the sake of God,' begged Balban. * So be it,' 
said the sultan, and the ugly slave was set among 
the bhistis or water-bearers. He soon showed that 
he was fitted for better things, rose to distinguished 
ofifices, and was enrolled in the famous corps of * the 
Forty ' slaves. 

' The hawk of fortune ' was thus set upon his 
wrist. He served Raziya as chief huntsman, and 
retained his post under Bahram. ' The steed of rule 
came under his bridle.' He was given a fief {jagir) 
or grant of lands. When the sultan was besieged in 
Delhi, Balban Avas among the leading rebels, and the 
success of the conspiracy brought him, in reward for 
his help, the government of Hansi, where he showed 
himself an improving and benevolent ruler, at once 
just and generous. In 1243 as lord chamberlain he 
subdued rebellion and pacified the country, and 
when the Mongols under Mangu Kaan pushed their 
way across the Indus, it was mainly due to the 



BALE AN 79 

urgent advice and strenuous efforts of Balban — who 
received the title of Ulugh Khan, ' Puissant lord,' — 
that the army of Delhi accomplished their defeat. 
It was he who compelled the Mongols to raise the 
siege of Uchh (1245) and retire to the hills, where he 
pursued them with untiring vigilance. In fact Bal- 
ban had become the guiding spirit of the Muslim 
rule, and when Mas'ud was deposed and his uncle 
Nasir-ad-din set upon the throne, the real authority 
was in the hands of the brilliant slave commander- 
in-chief. 

The feebleness of the successors of Altamish had 
permitted a recrudescence of Hindu rebellion, and 
Balban's energies were devoted to constant cam- 
paigns against the ' infidels.' Year after year he led 
his troops through the Doab, or to the hills of Ran- 
tambhor, against Malwa or Kalinjar, or the raja of 
Ijari, and everywhere his arms were victorious. His 
reputation became so great that the other officers 
and chiefs, envious of his success, prejudiced the 
sultan against him and had him banished from 
court (1253). The leader of this intrigue was a 
renegade Hindu eunuch, and the envious offi- 
cers found that they had exchanged th^ rule of a 
soldier for that of a schemer. There was universal 
discontent at the disgrace of the favourite, and the 
Turkish chiefs and the Persian officials of good fam- 
ily resented the despotism of the eunuch and his 
hired bullies. From all parts entreaties came to the 
banished general beseeching him to come back. The 
Turkish chiefs even rose in arms, and this demon- 
stration procured the dismissal of Rihan the renegade 



So MEDIMVAL INDIA 

and the restoration of Balban to all his honours 
(1254). Not only were men delighted at this act of 
justice, but it was observed that even the Almighty 
manifested His pleasure by sending down the long- 
needed rains. ' The success of Ulugh Khan shone 
forth with brilliant radiance ; the garden of the world 
began to put forth leaf, and the key of divine mercy 
opened the doors of men's hearts.' 

For twenty years in all Balban served the sultan 
indefatigably, and they were years full of rebellion, 
conspiracy, and Mongol alarms. His royal master 
led the life of a dervish, copied Korans to pay his 
modest needs, and lived in the simplest manner, at- 
tended by one wife, who cooked his dinner and was 
allowed no female servants. He was a kind and 
scholarly gentleman, who delighted in the society of 
the learned, but he was no king for India in the 
thirteenth century. Fortunately for him he had 
a deputy in Balban fully able to fill his place in the 
anxious cares of kingship. To this conspicuously 
able minister were due the two great measures of 
the reign : the organization of the frontier provinces 
and tribes under his able cousin Sher Khan, by which 
the attacks of the Mongols were successfully re- 
pelled ; and the steady suppression of Hindu disaf- 
fection — a perpetual and never-extinguished source 
of danger — in all parts of the kingdom. The con- 
stant jealousies and revolts of the overgrown Turk- 
ish chiefs demanded a strong hand to keep them 
down, and nothing but Balban's vigorous energy 
could have maintained the throne unimpaired through 
those twenty troubled years. 



B ALBANS GOVERNMENT 8 1 

On Nasir-ad-din's death in 1266, the great mini- 
ster, whose loyalty towards his gentle sovereign 
had never wavered, naturally stepped into his place. 
The same rule continued, but the mild influence of 
the dervish sultan no longer softened the severity of 
his vezir. The energetic minister became an impla- 
cable king. With ambitious Turkish khans tread- 
ing on his heels, Hindus everywhere ready to spring 
at the smallest opening for revolt, marauders infest- 
ing the very gates of Delhi, assaulting and robbing 
the bhistis and the girls who fetched water, above all 
with the Mongols ever hammering on the doors of 
the frontier posts, Balban had reason to be stern and 
watchful, and if he carried his severity to extreme 
lengths it was probably a case of his own life against 
the rest. He suppressed with an iron hand the 
forays of the hillmen who terrified the suburbs of 
Delhi ; his armies scoured the jungles about the capi- 
tal, destroyed the villages, cleared the forest, and at 
a sacrifice of 100,000 men turned a haunt of bush- 
rangers into a peaceable agricultural district. By 
building forts in disturbed parts and establishing 
Afghan garrisons in block-houses, he freed the roads 
from the brigands who had long practically closed 
them. ' Sixty years have passed since then,' says 
Barani, our chief authority for this reign, 'but the 
roads have ever since been free from robbers.' Such 
immunity was not attained by smooth words. Bal- 
ban pounced upon a disturbed district like a hawk, 
burnt and slew without mercy, till ' the blood of the 
rioters ran in streams, heaps of slain were seen near 
every village and jungle, and the stench of the dead 

6 



82 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

even spread to the Ganges.' Woodcutters were 
sent to cut roads through the jungles, and, like the 
reform of Marshal Wade in Scotland, the roadmak- 
ing did more to bring order among the wild tribes 
than even the massacre of their fighting men. 

In spite of the suffering involved, such work as this 
was of lasting benefit to the kingdom. So was Bal- 
ban's firm treatment of the Turkish landholders, who 
were assuming hereditary rights, and threatened to 
furnish forth a barons' war. Though these men were 
of his own kindred, and members, or sons of mem- 
bers, of the famous * Forty ' slaves, Balban had no 
mercy for them ; he was with difficulty induced to 
mitigate the wholesale expropriation that he once 
contemplated, but it is clear that he did much to de- 
prive the Turkish khans of their former power. He 
is said even to have poisoned his own cousin Sher 
Khan, the thirteenth century Lawrence of the Pan- 
jab, because he held almost royal authority in his 
arduous position ; and many instances are recorded 
of his terrible severity towards officers whose conduct 
gave occasion for the exercise of stern justice. 

Balban's one absorbing preoccupation was the 
danger of a Mongol invasion. For this cause he 
organized and disciplined his army to the highest 
point of efficiency ; for this he made away with 
disaffected or jealous chiefs, and steadily refused to 
entrust authority to Hindus ; for this he stayed 
near his capital and would not be tempted into 
distant campaigns. To realize the terror inspired 
by the Mongols one must read their description in 
the writings of Amir Khusru, a poet who lived at 



DREAD OF THE MONGOLS 83 

the court under the patronage of Balban's cultivated 
son Prince Mohammad. His picture of the Tatar 
infidels, riding on camels, with their bodies of steel 
and faces like fire, slits of eyes sharp as gimlets, 
short necks, leathery wrinkled cheeks, wide hairy 
nostrils and huge mouths, their coarse skins covered 
with vermin and their horrible smell, is the car- 
icature of fear. ' They are descended from dogs, 
but their bones are bigger,' he says. ' The king 
marvelled at their bestial faces and said that God 





GOLD COIN OF BALBAN, STRUCK AT DELHI, A.H. 672 (A.D. I273-4). 

must have created them out of hell-fire. They 
looked like so many sallow devils, and the people 
fled from them everywhere in panic' It was no 
wonder that Balban kept his army ever on the 
alert to drive such bogles away. 

The only distant expedition the sultan made was 
into Bengal, where ' the people had for many long 
years tended to rebellion and the disaffected and 
evil-disposed among them generally succeeded in con- 
taminating the loyalty of the governors.' Barani's 
opinion of the Bengalis has often been reiterated 
in more recent times; but in the days of the early 
Delhi kingdom the difificulty of communication 



84 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

across imperfectly subdued country, and the ab- 
sence of any sentiment of loyalty towards slave 
kings who had not yet founded a settled hereditary 
monarchy, may well have fostered ideas of inde- 
pendence in the great eastern province. Fifteen 
governors had successively ruled Bengal since Bakh- 
tiyar the Khalji first carried the standard of 
Mohammad Ghori there in the first year of the 
thirteenth century ; and their authority had been 
little curbed by the Delhi sultans. Altamish had 
put an end to the Khalji chiefs' ambitions and 
placed his own son in command of Bengal, but since 
then the weakness of the Delhi kings had left the 
governors to do as they pleased. 

Tughril, the fifteenth governor, a favourite slave 
of Balban's, observing that the sultan was now an 
old man intensely preoccupied with the menace of 
the Mongols, and being fortified in his designs by 
recent successes in the wild country about Orisa, 
where the Bengal army had taken vast spoil, per- 
mitted ' the ^g^ of ambition to hatch ' in his head, 
and assumed the style and insignia of sovereignty. 
In vivid contrast to the cold severity of Balban, 
the usurper of Bengal was free and open-handed, 
a friend with all the people. ' Money closed the 
eyes of the clear-sighted, and greed of gold kept 
the cautious quiet. Soldiers and citizens forgot 
their fear of the sovereign power and threw them- 
selves heart and soul into Tughril's cause.' The 
first army sent against him was defeated, as much 
perhaps by gold as by steel, and many of the 
Delhi troops deserted to the enemy. Their unlucky 



BALE AN IN BENGAL 85 

general, Aptagin of the long hair, felt the full brunt 
of Balban's fury, and was hanged at the gate of 
Oudh, to the indignation of the cooler heads among 
the people. A second expedition met with no 
better fate. 

Overwhelmed with shame and anger the old 
sultan himself led a third campaign. Leaving the 
marches over against the Mongols in the care of 
Prince Mohammad, and placing trusty deputies in 
charge of Delhi and Samana, he took his second 
son Bughra Khan with him, and crossing the Ganges 
made straight for Lakhnauti, in total disregard of 
the rains which were then in season. Collecting 
a fleet of boats, and, when none were to be had, 
wading through mud and water under the torrential 
rain of the tropics, the army pushed slowly and 
steadily on to the eastern capital, only to find that 
Tughril, not daring to face the sultan in person, 
had fled with his troops and stores towards the 
wilds of Jajnagar. ' We are playing for half my 
kingdom,' said Balban, * and I will never return to 
Delhi, nor even name it, till the blood of the rebel 
and his followers is poured out.* The soldiers knew 
their master's inflexible mind, and resignedly made 
their wills. The pursuit was vain for some time; 
not a trace of Tughril or his army was to be found. 
At last a party of scouts fell in with some corn- 
dealers returning from the rebel's headquarters. 
Chopping a couple of heads off untied the tongues 
of the rest, and the enemy's camp was discovered. 
A patrol of some forty men cautiously went for- 
ward and viewed the tents, with the men drinking 



86 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

and singing and washing their clothes, the elephants 
browsing on the branches of the trees, the horses 
and cattle grazing. There was no time to go back 
for reinforcements, — Tughril would be off with the 
dawn, — and into this scene of idyllic peace the 
handful of troopers burst like a mountain spate 
Drawing their swords and shouting for Tughril 
they rode straight for his tent. He heard the 
clamour and leaping on a bare-backed steed gal- 
loped for the river, while his followers fled madly in 
all directions, persuaded that Balban and all his army 
were upon them. Tughril was checked by a dexter- 
ous shaft, and in an instant he was beheaded. 

Then followed the punishment, conceived in Bal- 
ban's comprehensive way. Gibbets were ranged 
along both sides of the long bazar of Lakhnauti, and 
on them were strung rows of rebels ; the sons 
and kinsmen and followers of Tughril were killed and 
hung up to the horror of all beholders. Two days 
and more the work of retribution went on ; even a 
beggar to whom the usurper had been kind was not 
spared, and old men told Barani half a century later 
* that such punishment as was inflicted on Lakhnauti 
had never been heard of in Delhi, nor could anyone 
remember such a thing in all Hindustan.' When it 
was over the sultan sent for his son, Bughra Khan 
Mahmud, and made him take an oath to recover and 
hold the rest of Bengal, of which he was then and 
there appointed governor. Then he solemnly asked 
the prince, 'Mahmud, dost thou see?' The son 
did not understand. Again he said * Dost thou 
see ? ' and the prince was still silent and amazed. A 



REPRESSION OF BENGAL 8/ 

third time the question was asked, and then the old 
sultan explained : * You saw my punishments in the 
bazar? If ever designing and evil-minded men 
should incite you to waver in your allegiance to 
Delhi and to throw off its authority, then remember 
the vengeance you have seen wrought in the bazar. 
Understand me, and forget not, that if the governors 
of Hind or Sind, Malwa or Gujarat, Lakhnauti or 
Sonargaon, shall draw the sword and become rebels 
to the throne of Delhi, then such punishment as has 
fallen upon Tughril and his dependants will fall 
upon them, their wives and children, and all their 
adherents. 

After this deadly warning, he tenderly embraced 
his son with tears, and bade him farewell, knowing 
perfectly that all counsels were thrown away upon a 
prince whose whole soul was in his pleasures. Never- 
theless Bughra Khan and five of his descendants ruled 
in Bengal for more than half a century (1282-1339), 
whilst in Delhi the house of Balban did not survive 
his death three years. In suppressing a rebellion in 
the remote eastern province, the sultan had really 
founded his dynasty in the only part where it was free 
to hold its own. He did not long enjoy the memories 
of his terrible campaign. The death of his first-born, 
the popular and promising * martyr prince ' Mo- 
hammad, in battle against the Mongols near Di- 
palpur, in 1285, broke his heart. During the day he 
struggled against his grief, held his court with all 
his wonted punctilious etiquette and splendour, and 
transacted the business of State ; but at night he 
wailed and cast dust upon his head. 



88 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

In 1287 Balban died, after forty years of rule, half 
as minister, half as king. No one understood better 
than he the conditions of kingship in India, or how 
to impose himself upon his subjects. He main- 
tained a rich and ceremonious state among a people 
always impressed by magnificence, and crowds of 
Hindus would come long journeys to see his pomp 
and majesty. Even his private attendants were never 
allowed to see him but in full dress. That he never 
laughed aloud is only to say that he was a well-bred 
oriental gentleman who despised the levity of an 
empty mind ; but neither did he permit anyone else 
to laugh ; and never joking or indulging in the least 
familiarity with any one, he allowed no frivolity in 
his presence. In his youth he had been fond of wine 
and hazard, but all this was put aside when he came 
to authority. Throughout his forty years of power 
he was never known to hold converse with vulgar 
people or to give office to any but well-born men. 
Slave as he was once, he came of a race of chiefs, 
and no one showed more sensitiveness in preserving 
the dignity of a king. Balban, the slave, water- 
carrier, huntsman, general, statesman, and sultan is 
one of the most striking figures among many notable 
men in the long line of the kings of Delhi. 



CHAPTER V 

FIRST DECCAN CONQUESTS 

ALA-AD-DIN KHALJI 

I29O-I321 

BALBAN was one of those men who leave no 
successors. His very dominance checked the 
growth of even imitators, much more rivals. He had 
extinguished the powerful group of slaves who were 
the true inheritors of Altamish, He had trained no 
school of great ministers. His hopes were centred 
in his eldest son, who died before him ; he had no 
confidence in Bughra Khan, and when he found, on 
offering him the succession, that this frivolous prince 
preferred returning to his amusements in Bengal to 
waiting by his father's sick-bed for the splendid 
reversion of empire, Balban in his irritation left the 
throne to a son of his dead favourite, who never 
ascended it. A son of Bughra was set up by the 
chief officers, but never was a choice less fit. Kai- 
Kubad in his seventeen years had been so carefully 
brought up by tutors under his stern grandfather's 
eye that he had never been allowed to catch sight 

89 



90 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

of a pretty girl or to sip a wine-cup. He had been 
taught all the polite arts and knew nothing of the 
impolite. This was the youth who suddenly found 
himself absolute master of all that the most luxur- 
ioj^is city of India, all that India itself, could offer to 
youth and desire. The result may be left to the 
imagination. In less than three years he had drunk 
and debauched himself into a hopeless paralytic ; 
and when a ruffian was sent to murder him, he found 
the pitiable young man in the chamber of mirrors in 
his lovely palace at Kilughari on the Jumna, lying 
at his last gasp, and then and there literally kicked 
him out of this world. 

His father had come from Bengal to try and save 
him, though he was not himself of a didactic nature ; 
but he found him amiable and hopeless, utterly 
under the spell of a clever vezir, who encouraged 
the fool in his folly in the hope of succeeding to the 
throne. But the vezir Nizam-ad-din overreached 
himself. The crippling of the kingdom was more ser- 
ious than the paralysis of the sultan. The officers who 
remembered the stern order of Balban's rule found 
even greater severity but none of the order under 
the arrogant vezir. A series of murders, beginnirfg 
with Balban's heir-designate, the son of the ' martyr 
prince,' followed by an insidious inquisition from 
which no man was safe, roused an opposition which 
developed into a war of races. 

Besides the Turks who had held most of the of- 
fices of state since the days of Aybek, there were a 
large number of adventurers of other races in the 
service of the Slave Kings. Many of these were Af- 



THE KHALJIS 9 1 

ghans, or Turks so mixed and associated with 
Afghans that they had absorbed their character and 
customs. These were known as Patans or Pathans, 
a term used loosely, much as Moghul was in later 
times, to describe the white men from the north- 
west mountains. The clan of Khaljis, named after 
the Afghan village of Khalj, though probably of 
Turkish origin, had become Afghan in character, 
and between them and the Turks there was no love 
lost. Khaljis had conquered Bengal and ruled there, 
and Khaljis held many posts in other parts. These 
formed a strong party, and rallied round Jalal-ad- 
din, the muster-master or adjutant-general, an old 
Khalji who had been marked down for destruction 
by the Turkish adherents of the vezir. The Khaljis 
were not popular ; but the vezir was hated : the 
choice of evils, however, did not lie with the people, 
and on the death of the paralytic sultan the reaction 
against the Turks brought the Khaljis into power, 
and set Jalal-ad-din upon the throne of Delhi. For 
a time at least the Turks had lost the empire. 

It is characteristic of the adaptability of the In- 
dian people that although the Turks were foreigners 
artd their rule had been anything but conciliatory, 
their suppression was resented as a wanton innova- 
tion. No Khalji, they said, had ever been a king, 
and the race had no part or lot in Delhi. Conserva- 
tive in everything, the Indian cherishes even his 
oppressors. Nevertheless the Khalji dynasty lasted 
thirty years, and included six sovereigns ; and 
amongst them was one great ruler, whose reign of 
twenty years contributed powerfully to the extension 



92 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

of the Muslim dominion in India. Jalal-ad-din Firoz 
Shah himself was the mildest king that ever held a 
sceptre. An old man of seventy years, preoccupied 
with preparations for the next world, he utterly re- 
fused to shed blood even for flagrant crimes. When 
Chhaju, a nephew of Balban, led an army against 
the sultan and the rebels were defeated and cap- 
tured, Firoz forgave them freely and even kindly 
commended their loyalty to the fallen house. A 
thousand Thugs were arrested, but Firoz would not 
consent to the execution of even the members of a 
society of assassins, and merely banished them to 
Bengal. Traitors, conspirators, thieves, alike found 
mercy and forgiveness at the hands of the long- 
suffering king, who had never stained his soul with 
blood save in open battle, and then — as against the 
Mongols on the Indus in 1292 — he had shown himself 
valiant enough. The execution of a fakir suspected 
of magic and sedition was his only act of capital 
punishment, and the exception was unfortunate: 
superstitious folk saw in the black storm that dark- 
ened the world on the day of the holy man's death 
under the elephant's foot, and in the famine that 
ensued, omens of the fall of the crown. * 

The invincible clemency and humility of the sultan 
were incomprehensible and exasperating to his fol- 
lowers. His was no ideal of kingship for an Eastern 
world. They resented his simplicity of life and 
even his familiar evenings with the old friends of 
his former obscurity. They did not appreciate his 
love of wit and learning. What they wanted was a 
fighting king, inexorable in his judgments and unsur- 



ALA-AD-DIN 



93 



passable in his pomp. Sedition grew apace, and the 
sultan's nephew, Ala-ad-din, who had married his 
uncle's daughter, put himself at the head of the mal- 
contents. After a course of dissimulation — it was 
easy to deceive the kind-hearted unsuspecting old 
man — the nephew drew the sultan unarmed and 
unguarded into a trap (1296), and as Firoz was 
stooping and actually fondling the traitor, Ala-ad- 
din gave the signal and one of the basest murders 
in history was accomplished. The aged king was 
slashed, thrown down, and beheaded, and his white 
hairs cast at the feet of the nephew he had trusted. 
'Although Ala-ad-din,' writes Barani in just hor- 
ror, ' reigned successfully for some years, and all 
things prospered to his wish, and though he had 
wives and children, family and adherents, wealth 
and grandeur, still he did not escape retribution for 
the blood of his patron. He shed more innocent 
blood than ever Pharaoh was guilty of. Fate at 
length placed a betrayer in his path, by whom his 
family was destroyed, and the retribution that fell 
upon it never had a parallel in any infidel land.' 
Anxious as the historian is to vindicate the justice 
of heaven, it must be admitted that it was slow to 
take effect. For twenty years Ala-ad-din ruled Hin- 
dustan with unprecedented vigour, and broadened 
the borders of his kingdom. He had already a rep- 
utation as a soldier, and found no opposition worth 
mentioning to his accession. The * Queen of the 
World ' (Malika-i-Jahan), widow of Firoz, a woman 
who is described as ' the silliest of the silly,' did 
indeed set up one of his sons as king at Delhi ; but 



94 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Ibrahim ^ was a mere stripling, and his more capable 
brother Arkali Khan was away in Multan. The 
whole family were secured under promise of safety, 
and once caught were blinded and shut up. The 
mouths of the people were closed with gold. As 
Ala-ad-din marched to Delhi, a catapult showered 
pounds of ' gold stars ' among the crowd at every 
halt. Recruits flocked to such a Pactolian stream, 
and before he reached the capital he had a following 
of 56,000 horse and 60,000 foot. The officers and 
nobles of the late king, to their credit, wavered be- 
fore they threw in their lot with his assassin ; but 
gold and numbers told in the end. 

Tn November, 1296, Ala-ad-din entered Delhi un- 
opposed, seated himself with all pomp upon the 
throne, and took up his residence in the Red Palace. 
His politic conciliation of the late king's officers was 
abandoned as soon as the royal family were safely 
caged ; but the new sultan's wrath curiously fell 
upon those of the officials and nobles who had de- 
serted Firoz and taken his murderer's money. All 
these were arrested and locked up. ' Some were 
blinded and some were killed. The wealth which 
they had received from Ala-ad-din, and their pro- 
perty, goods, and effects were all seized. Their 
houses were confiscated to the sultan, and their 
villages were brought into the public exchequer. 
Nothing, was left to their children ; their retainers 
and followers were taken in charge by the amirs 
who supported the new regime, and their establish- 

* He occupied the throne long enough to issue coins. See Lane- 
POOLE, Catalogue of Indian Coins: Sultans of Delhi ^ pp. 37, 38. 



DECCAN CONQUESTS 95 

ments were overthrown.' The only three of the 
officers of Firoz who were spared were three who 
had never abandoned him nor taken gold from his 
supplanter. * They alone remained safe, but all the 
other Jalali nobles were cut up root and branch.' ^ It 
was a lesson for turn-coats. 

Sultan Ala-ad-din, who entered upon his reign 
with these trenchant measures, was first and fore- 





gold coin of ala-ad-din, struck at delhi, a.h. 6g8 
(a.d. 1298-9). 

most a soldier. So illiterate was he that he did not 
even know how to read. But he knew how to com- 
mand an army and to carry it through an arduous 
campaign. Shortly before the murder of his uncle 
he had won great glory by his conquests in the Dec- 
can. Hitherto the utmost stretch of the kingdom 
of Delhi had been across the plains from the Indus 
to Bengal, and from the Himalayas to the Vindhya 
mountains. No Mohammedan ruler had ventured 

^ We have the details of this period from Ziya-ad-din Barani, whose 
father and uncle were both in Ala-ad-din's employ, the one as deputy 
at Baran, the other at Karra and Oudh. The historian had thus 
ample means of information ; nevertheless he is not always trust- 
worthy. 



96 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

to cross the Narbada river and the Satpura hills into 
the great plateau of southern India — Maharashtra, 
the land of the Marathas, the seat of ancient mon- 
archies and of strange tongues. In 1294 however, 
after successfully dealing with insurrections in Ban- 
delkhand and Malwa, Prince Ala-ad-din set out with 
eight thousand men from his government of Karra 
on the Jumna, bent upon more ambitious schemes. 
Forcing his way through the forests of the Vindhya 
range, by difficult passes, and ill-provided with men 
or supplies, the prince carried his small force 700 
miles to Devagiri, the capital of the Maratha raja, 
which he took and pillaged unresisted. He had 
given out that he had quarrelled with his uncle the 
sultan of Delhi and was seeking service with one of 
the southern rajas. The ruler of Devagiri was taken 
by surprise and fled to one of the hill forts. Here, 
by another lie, Ala-ad-din procured his submission 
and the cession of Elichpur, and thus the Muslims 
made their first step into the Deccan. It was from 
the boundless treasures won in this campaign that 
the conqueror procured the ' golden stars ' which 
lighted his road to Delhi. 

The way to the south, thus opened, was never 
again shut, though in the earliest years of his reign 
Ala-ad-din had other work to do. After the sup- 
pression of the nobles came the invasions of those 
human locusts the Mongols, who from 1296 to 1305 
made repeated incursions over the Indus. The 
worst of these was in 1297, when Kutlugh Khwaja, 
starting from the Oxus and coming down the passes, 
marched upon Delhi, driving before him such a 



THE MONGOLS IN INDIA 



9; 



crowd of fugitives that the streets were blocked and 
a state of famine prevailed. The capital was in no 
condition for defence ; but when urged to temporize 
with the enemy, the sultan indignantly refused : ' If I 
were to follow your advice,' he said, ' how could I show 
my face, how go into my harim, what store would the 
people set by me, and where would be the daring and 
courage needed to keep down my own turbulent 
subjects? No : come what may, to-morrow I march 
into the plain of Kili.' There, at a short distance 
from Delhi, he found 200,000 Mongols drawn up. 
The sultan's right wing under his gallant general 
Zafar Khan, who had lately taken Siwistan from the 
Mongols by a brilliant cotip de main, broke the 
enemy's left and pursued them off the field for many 
miles, mowing them down at every stride. But the 
left, under Ulugh Khan, the sultan's brother, jeal- 
ously refused to support him, and Zafar was cut off 
by an ambush. Despising the Mongol leader's offer 
of quarter, he shot his last arrows, killing an enemy 
at every twang of the bow, and was then surrounded 
and slain. Though the right wing of the Delhi army 
was thus rashly but gallantly lost, its valour was not 
thrown away. The Mongols had seen enough of 
the Indian horsemen, and in the night they vanished. 
The Mongol inroads and the long establishment 
of these nomads on the frontier led to the settle- 
ment of many of the strangers in India, and their 
quarters at Delhi became known as Mughalpur or 
Mongol-town. They adopted Islam and were called 
' the new Muslims.' Their fate was miserable. 

They were kept in great poverty, and eventually 

7 



98 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

became a danger to the state. A conspiracy among 
them was discovered, and Ala-ad-din commanded 
that the whole of the ' new Muslims ' should be de- 
stroyed in one day. The order was carried out. 
Thirty to forty thousand wretched Mongols were 
killed in cold blood, their houses plundered, their 
wives and children cast adrift on the world. Cruelty 
towards women and children was a new experience 
in India. ' Up to this time,' says Barani, * no hand 
had ever been laid upon wives or children on account 
of men's misdeeds.' To cast them into prison in 
revenge for their men's rebellion was one of the un- 
enviable inventions which made * the crafty cruelty ' 
of Ala-ad-din detested. 

There was undoubtedly a great deal of popular 
ferment, which may well have taxed the never easy 
temper of the sultan and provoked severe retaliation. 
We read of a dangerous mutiny of the troops in 
1298, after a successful campaign in Gujarat, where 
the Hindus had again become independent. Their 
raja was driven away into the Deccan, and the idol 
which had been set up at Somnath, in the place of 
the linga destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni, was cast 
down and carried to Delhi to be trodden under the 
feet of the faithful. An attempt to wrest from the 
army the legal fifth of the immense booty seized in 
this campaign led to the mutiny ; some of the chief 
of^cers were killed, including a nephew of the sultan, 
and the soldiers were allowed perforce to keep their 
spoil. 

In spite of such checks, the wealth and prosperity 
of the sultan were unbounded. To quote the words 



REBELLIONS 99 

of the contemporary Barani : * In the third year of 
his reign Ala-ad-din had Httle to do beyond attending 
to his pleasures, giving feasts, and holding festivals. 
One success followed another ; dispatches of victory 
came in from all sides ; every year he had two or 
three sons born ; affairs of state went on to his satis- 
faction, his treasury was overflowing, boxes and cask- 
ets of jewels and pearls were daily displayed before 
his eyes, he had numerous elephants in his stables 
and seventy thousand horses in the city and envi- 
rons. . . . All this prosperity intoxicated him. 
Vast desires and great aims, far beyond him — or a 
hundred thousand of his like, — germinated in his 
brain, and he indulged fancies which had never 
occurred to any king before him. In his conceit, ig- 
norance, and folly, he completely lost his balance, 
formed utterly impossible schemes, and cherished 
the wildest desires. He was a man of no learning 
and never associated with men of learning. He could 
not read or write a letter. He was bad-tempered, 
obstinate, and hard-hearted ; but the world smiled 
upon him, fortune befriended him, and his plans were 
usually successful, so that he only became the more 
reckless and arrogant.' He dreamed of emulating 
the blessed Prophet and founding a new religion, and 
he contemplated setting up a viceroy in Delhi and 
then (he would say in his cups at one of his frequent 
carousals) ' I will go forth, like Alexander, in search 
of conquest, and subdue the world.' He caused his 
title to be proclaimed in the Friday prayers and en- 
graved on coins and inscriptions as ' the second 
Alexander.' 



lOO MEDIEVAL INDIA 

There were wiser men than Ala-ad-din, however, at 
the royal revels, and one of them, an uncle of the 
historian whom we. have quoted, ventured to give 
the sultan good advice. He counselled him to leave 
religion-making to the prophets, and instead of 
dreaming of universal conquest to set about reducing 
the many cities and districts of Hindustan — such as 
Rantambhor, Chitor, Chanderi, Malwa, Dhar, Ujjayn 
— which were still in Hindu hands ; to * close the road 
to Multan ' against the Mongols ; and to give up wine 
and junketing. Instead of resenting this frank ad- 
vice, the sultan promised to adopt it, and handsomely 
rewarded the honest counsellor. The very first step 
towards mastering the still unsubdued parts of Hin- 
dustan showed Ala-ad-din that he had been living in 
a fool's paradise. Instead of conquering the world 
in the role of Alexander, he found that the mere siege 
of Rantambhor taxed all his energies ; and whilst it 
was dragging on for many months, other events hap- 
pened which caused reflection. He was very nearly 
assassinated in a conspiracy headed by a nephew, 
who, leaving the sultan for dead, sat himself upon the 
throne, received the homage of the nobles, and was 
even about to enter his uncle' s harim when the eunuch 
Malik Dinar faced him at the door and swore he 
should not go in until he produced Ala-ad-din's head. 
The head all too soon appeared, set alertly as ever on 
its own shoulders, as the living sultan showed him- 
self to the army on a neighbouring knoll. The rebel 
Akat Khan was beheaded instead of his uncle ; the 
conspirators were scourged to death with wire thongs, 
and their wives and children sent into captivity. 



REPRESSIVE MEASURES lOI 

Nor was this the only sign of the times. Two other 
nephews raised the flag of insurrection, and though 
overpowered and cruelly blinded in their uncle's 
presence, their failure did not discourage imitation. 
A mad revolt broke out at Delhi, led by a slave, who 
set up an unfortunate grandson of Altamish as sultan, 
opened the prison doors, and rioted unchecked for 
days. Though the revolt was more like a mum- 
mery of the Abbot of Unreason than a political 
movement, and was suppressed with little difficulty, 
it showed the uneasiness and ferment of the people. 
Four mutinies or insurrections in a few months 
pointed to something amiss, and the sultan deter- 
mined to find out the causes of the discontent. Af- 
ter many consultations day and night with his chief 
counsellors, it was resolved that the main reasons 
were to be found in the sultan's disregard of the do- 
ings of the people ; in the prevalence of convivial 
meetings where open political talk followed the wine- 
cup ; in the seditious intimacy of the various amirs 
and notables ; and in the fact that too many people 
had a superfluity of wealth with which they could 
suborn adventurers and set revolts on foot. 

Whether these results were really the opinions of 
the council or merely the ex post facto deductions of 
the historian who records them, they were at least 
acted upon by the king. The evil effects of too much 
wealth among his subjects particularly impressed 
him : it was a disease admitting of easy and gratify- 
ing cure. * The sultan,' says Barani, ' ordered that 
wherever there was a village held by proprietary 
right (milk), in free gift (in'am), or as a religious 



I02 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

endowment (wakf), it should by one stroke of the 
pen be brought under the exchequer. The people 
were pressed and amerced and money was exacted 
from them on every kind of pretext. Many were left 
without any money, till at length it came to pass that, 
excepting maliks and amirs, officials, Multanis (i. e., 
large traders from Multan) and bankers, no one pos- 
sessed even a trifle in cash. So rigorous was the con- 
fiscation that, beyond a few thousand tankas, all 
the pensions, grants in land, and endowments in the 
country were appropriated. The people were all so 
absorbed in obtaining the means of living that the 
very name of rebellion was never mentioned.' 

In the next place he organized a universal system 
of espionage. ' No one could stir without his know- 
ledge, and whatever happened in the houses of no- 
bles, great men, and officials, was communicated to 
the sultan by his reporter.' Nor were the reports 
shelved ; they led to unpleasant explanations. ' The 
system of reporting went to such a length that no- 
bles dared not speak aloud even in '' palaces of a 
thousand columns," and if they had anything to say 
they communicated by signs. In their own houses, 
night and day, the reports of the spies made them 
tremble. No word or action that could provoke 
censure or punishment was allowed to escape. The 
transactions in the bazars, the buying and selling, 
and the bargains made, were all reported to the sul- 
tan and were kept under control.' 

Nor was this all. Remembering the warning of 
his counsellors on the political influences of social 
revels, * he prohibited wine-drinking and wine-selling 



REPRESSIVE MEASURES 



103 



as well as the use of beer and intoxicating drugs. 
Dicing was also forbidden. Many prohibitions of 
wine and beer were issued. Vintners and gamblers 
and beer-sellers were turned out of the city and the 
heavy taxes which had been levied upon them were 
abolished and lost to the treasury. The sultan di- 
rected that all the china and glass vessels of his 
banqueting room should be broken, and the frag- 
ments of them were thrown before the Badaun gate, 
where they rose in a heap. Jars and casks of wine 
were brought out of the royal cellars and emptied at 
the same gate in such abundance that mud and mire 
was produced as at the rainy season.' The sultan 
himself renounced all wine-drinking, and many of 
the better sort followed his example, but of course 
there was a great deal of clandestine bibbing among 
the dissolute, and these when detected were thrown 
into pits dug outside the Badaun gate, where many 
perished miserably. It was found impossible to 
wholly suppress the use of wine, and the sultan was 
obliged to wink at a certain amount of drinking, 
provided that it was private and the liquor brewed at 
home ; but public drinking was for the time stamped 
out. 

Still further to discourage conspiracy and privy 
understandings, the sultan gave commands that 
' noblemen and grandees should not visit at each 
other's houses, or give feasts, or hold meetings. 
They were forbidden to form alliances without con- 
sent from the throne and they were also prohibited 
from allowing people to resort to their houses. To 
such a length was this last prohibition carried that 



104 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

strangers could not gain admittance into a noble- 
man's house. Feasting and hospitality fell into total 
disuse. Through fear of the spies the nobles kept 
themselves quiet ; they gave no parties and had lit- 
tle communication with each other. No man of a 
seditious, rebellious, or evil reputation was allowed 
to come near them. If they went to the palaces, 
they could not lay their heads together and sit down 
cosily and tell each other their troubles.' ^ 

Besides this more than Russian system of espion- 
age among the Muslims, great and small, the sul- 
tan devised special measures against his Hindu 
subjects. The Hindu was to be so reduced as to 
be left unable to keep a horse to ride on, to carry 
arms, to wear fine clothes, or to enjoy any of the 
luxuries of life. He was taxed to the extent of half 
the produce of his land, and had to pay duties on 
all his buffaloes, goats, and other milch-cattle. The 
taxes were to be levied equally on rich and poor, at 
so much per acre, so much per animal. Any col- 
lectors or officers taking bribes were summarily dis- 
missed and heavily punished ' with sticks, pincers, 
the rack, imprisonment and chains.' The new rules 
were strictly carried out, so that one revenue officer 
would string together twenty Hindu notables and 
enforce payment by blows. No gold or silver, not 
even the betel nut, so cheering and stimulative to 
pleasure, was to be seen in a Hindu house, and the 
wives of the impoverished native officials were 
reduced to taking service in Muslim families. 

^ Barani, Tarikh-i - Firoz- Shahi, Elliot and DowsoN, iii, 
l8i-i88. 



PERSECUTION OF HINDUS 105 

Revenue officers came to be regarded as more 
deadly than the plague ; and to be a government 
glerk w^as a disgrace worse than death, insomuch 
that no Hindu would marry his daughter to such 
a man. 

All these new enactments were promulgated with- 
out any reference to the legal authorities. Ala-ad- 
din held that government was one thing and law 
another, and so long as what he ordered seemed to 
him good he did not stop to inquire whether it was 
according to law. One day however he saw the 
learned kazi of Biana at court, and addressing him 
said he had some questions to ask to which he re- 
quired truthful replies. ' The angel of my fate 
seems to be at hand,' cried the kazi in alarm, ' since 
your Majesty wishes to question me on matters of 
religion ' — that is, religious law. The sultan promised 
not to kill him, and a curious conversation ensued. 

Ala-ad-din wished first to know the legal position 
of Hindus, and the kazi replied ' They are called 
payers of tribute [kharaj ghuzar), and when the 
revenue officer demands silver from them, they 
should, without question and with all humility and 
respect, tender gold. If the officer throws dirt (or 
spits) into their mouths, they must unreluctantly open 
their mouths wide to receive it. By doing so they 
show their respect for the officer. The due submis- 
sion of the non-Muslims {zimmi) is exhibited in this 
humble payment and by this throwing of dirt into 
their mouths. The glorification of Islam is a duty, 
and contempt of the Religion is vain. God holds 
them in contempt, for He says "keep them under in 



I06 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

subjection." To keep the Hindus in abasement is 
especially a religious duty, because they are the 
most inveterate enemies of the Prophet.' 

The sultan said that he did not understand a 
word of the learned man's argument, but he had 
taken his measures to reduce the pride of the 
Hindus, and had succeeded in making them so 
obedient that 'at my command they are ready to 
creep into holes like mice.' ' O Doctor,' he went 
on, ' thou art a learned man, but hast no experience 
of the world. I am an unlettered man, but I have 
seen a great deal. Be assured then that the Hindus 
will never become submissive and obedient till they 
are reduced to poverty. I have therefore given 
orders that just sufHcient shall be left to them 
from year to year of corn, milk, and curds, but that 
they shall not be allowed to accumulate hoards of 
property.' 

So far the law and the sultan were not at variance. 
When they spoke of the punishment of corrupt rev- 
enue ofilicers, there was still not much difference; 
but when the sultan touched upon the delicate ques- 
tion of his own claim upon war-booty and upon the 
public treasury, the kazi said, ' The time of my death 
is at hand. If I answer your question honestly you 
will slay me, and if I give an untrue reply I shall 
hereafter go to hell.' Nevertheless he spoke out 
boldly and told Ala-ad-din that all treasure won by 
the armies of Islam belonged to the public treasury 
and not to the sultan, and that if he wished to follow 
the highest example of the most enlightened caliphs 
he would draw no more from the treasury for him- 



ALA-AD-DIN'S POLICY 



107 



self and his family and establishment than was al- 
lotted to each fighting man in the army. This reply 
excited the sultan's wrath and he said ' Dost thou 
not fear my sword, when thou tellest me that all my 
great expenditure on my harim is unlawful ? * The 
kazi replied, ' I do fear your Majesty's sword, and I 
look upon this turban as my winding sheet; but 
your Majesty questions me about the law, and I an- 
swer to the best of my ability. If however you ask 
my advice in a political point of view, then I say that 
whatever your Majesty spends upon your harim no 
doubt tends to raise your dignity in the eyes of 
men ; and the exaltation of a king's dignity is essen- 
tial to good policy.' 

After many questions and answers, the sultan said 
to the kazi, ' You have declared my proceedings in 
these matters to be unlawful. Now see how I act. 
When troopers do not appear at the muster, I order 
three years' pay to be taken from them. I place wine- 
drinkers and wine-sellers in the pits. If a man de- 
bauches another man's wife I effectually prevent him 
from again committing such an offence and the wo- 
man I cause to be killed. Rebels^ good and bad, old 
hands or novices, I slay ; their wives and children I 
reduce to beggary and ruin. Extortion I punish 
with the torture of the pincers and the stick, and I 
keep the extortioner in prison, in chains and fetters, 
until every halfpenny is restored. Political prison- 
ers I confine and chastise. Wilt thou say all this is 
unlawful ? ' 

Then the kazi rose and went to the entrance of the 
room, placed his forehead on the ground, and cried 



I08 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

with a loud voice, — * My liege, send your unworthy 
servant to prison, or order me to be cut in two, but 
<^// this is unlawful and finds no support in the say- 
ings of the Prophet or in the expositions of the 
learned.' The sultan said nothing, but put on his 
slippers and went into his harim. The kazi went 
home, took a last farewell of his family, and per- 
formed the ablutions required in one about to die. 
Then he bravely returned to court ; when to his 
amazement the sultan gave him his own robe and 
a thousand tankas, with these words, ' Although I 
have not studied the Science or the Book, I am a 
Muslim of a Muslim stock. To prevent rebellion, in 
which thousands perish, I issue such orders as I con- 
ceive to be for the good of the state and the benefit 
of the people. Men are heedless, contumacious, and 
disobedient to my commands. I am then compelled 
to be severe to bring them into obedience. I do not 
know whether this is lawful or unlawful : whatever I 
think to be for the good of the state or opportune 
for the emergency, that I decree.' 

We have given most of Barani's account of this 
interview and of Ala-ad-din's methods of administra- 
tion because they present a valuable picture of Mus- 
lim rule in India, and such intimate views are rare 
in Eastern chronicles. The historian may perhaps 
have described what he himself thought rather than 
what the sultan or the kazi really said ; but as his re- 
lations were officials in Ala-ad-din's service, he had 
good means of knowing the truth. The sultan did 
not stop at repressive measures : he interfered with 
trade, and even meddled with the laws of supply and 



MONGOL ATTACKS IO9 

demand. The occasion for these innovations was 
presented by an external danger. Another invasion 
of the Mongols in 1303, when they again threatened 
Delhi, camped on the Jumna, blocked the roads, and 
occupied the suburbs for two months, alarmed the 
sultan. The Mongols retired without taking the capi- 
tal, but not on account of any success of the Indian 
army. Never in fact had Delhi been less protected. 
The sultan had just returned from taking the Raj- 
put stronghold of Chitor, the siege of which in the 
rainy season had almost prostrated his troops. A 
second army sent to the Deccan to conquer Waran- 
gal in the same unfavourable season had suffered even 
more severely, and returned diminished and discour- 
aged. There was no force at his command capable 
of meeting the Mongols in the field, and their de- 
parture without conquering the capital was regarded 
as nothing less than a miracle. 

This narrow escape concentrated Ala-ad-din*s care 
upon his defences. Abandoning for the time all 
thought of further conquest, he settled himself at 
his new palace-fortress of Siri — one of the royal sub- 
urbs which, like Kilughari, afterwards ' Newtown,' 
(Shahr-i-nau), were growing up round the capital 
— and set to work at preparations for repelling 
attack. He repaired and added to the forts of 
Delhi, constructed siege-engines, stone-slings and 
mangonels, collected arms and stores. Strong gar- 
risons were placed at Samana and Dipalpur, which 
had become the Muslim outposts on the threatened 
north-west frontier — for the Mongols still practi- 
cally held the Panjab — and tried generals were set 



no 



MEDIEVAL INDIA 



in command of all the posts on the Mongol track. 
The main difficulty was how to increase the army 
and maintain it in efficient order, — well-mounted, 
well-armed, well- trained, and well- supplied with 
archers. The pay of the soldier was fixed at 




THE GATEWAY OF ALA-AD-DIN IN THE MOSQUE AT DELHI. 



234 tankas (nearly £2^, with an addition of 78 
tankas (i^8) for those who contributed two horses. 
In order to enable the soldier to live on this 
pay, support his family, and furnish himself with 
horses and arms, the sultan ventured upon experi- 
ments in political economy. He resolved to keep 



THE NEW TARIFF III 

down the cost of necessaries, and enacted that 
thenceforth there should be a fixed price for food. 
The principal items were thus fixed in the new tariff : 
Wheat, y^jitals (nearly 3d) per man (about a quarter, 
28 lbs.); barley, i|-d ; rice, 2d ; pulse, 2d ; lentil, id. 
This scale of prices was maintained as long as 
Ala-ad-din lived. As a matter of fact it may be 
taken to represent the average open market price 
in country towns, and the sultan's measures were 
evidently intended to counteract the tendency to 
inflated prices at the metropolis caused by an inade- 
quate supply of provisions. 

To increase this supply and encourage larger 
importation he gave orders that the ' Khalisa ' or 
crown villages of the Doab and some other parts 
should pay their taxes in kind, and with these con- 
tributions he accumulated vast stores of grain in 
Delhi, from which in times of scarcity corn was sold 
at the tariff price to the inhabitants. The carriers 
of the kingdom were registered, and encouraged to 
bring corn from the villages at the fixed price. Any 
attempts at regrating or holding up corn and selling 
at enhanced prices were sternly put down. Inspectors 
watched the markets, and if prices rose by so much 
as a farthing the overseer received twenty stripes 
with a stick ; the offence seldom recurred. Short 
weight was checked by the effectual method of 
carving from the hams of the unjust dealer a piece 
of flesh equivalent to the deficit in the weight of 
what he had sold. Everything was set down in the 
tariff: vegetables, fruits, sugar, oil, horses, slaves, 
caps, shoes, combs, and needles ; and we learn that a 



112 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

serving girl cost 5 to 12 tankas, a concubine 20 to 
40, slave labourers 10 to 15, handsome pages 20 to 
30, and so forth. 

These various measures show that the sultan, 
though he might be wrong-headed and disdainful of 
the law, was a man of sense and determination, who 
knew his own mind, saw the necessities of the situa- 
tion, met them by his own methods, and carried out 
those methods with persistence. They were undoubt- 
edly successful. We hear of no more rebellions, and 
when next the Mongols tried issues with the sul- 
tan's new army they were effectually defeated. ' The 
armies of Islam were everywhere triumphant over 
them. Many thousands were taken prisoners, and 
were brought with ropes round their necks to Delhi, 
where they were cast under the feet of elephants. 
Their heads were piled up into pyramids or built into 
towers.' It is related in sober fact that the blood and 
bones of the Mongols formed part of the building 
materials of the new walls and gates and defences with 
which the sultan improved the capital.^ On one of the 
occasions of a Mongol inroad not a man went back 
alive, and the enemy ' conceived such a fear and 
dread of the army of Islam that all fancy for coming 
to Hindustan was washed out of their breasts. All 
fear of the Mongols entirely departed from Delhi 
and the neighbouring provinces. Perfect security 
was everywhere felt, and the rayats carried on their 
agriculture in peace.' ^ This was largely due to the 

^ It was after these repeated successes that the unfortunate Mongols 
who had settled in the suburbs of Delhi were massacred in Mughalpur 
as related above. ^ Barani, /. c, iii, 199. 



DECCAN CONQUESTS II3 

successful frontier fighting of Ghazi Malik, afterwards 
Sultan Taghlak, the governor of the Panjab, a worthy 
successor of Sher Khan. 

Freed by these reforms from the fear of conspiracy 
and invasion, Sultan Ala-ad-din resumed his plans of 
conquest. He had reduced two great Hindu for- 
tresses, Rantambhor and Chitor, though at enormous 
cost. He now turned again towards the Deccan. An 
army under Malik Kafur Hazardinari (the ' five- 
hundred guinea man'), a handsome castrato who 
had fascinated the sultan, was sent in 1308 to recover 
Devagiri, where the Yadava ruler, Rama Deva had 
reasserted his independence and neglected to pay the 
tribute he promised at the time of Ala-ad-din's con- 
quest fifteen years before. The campaign was suc- 
cessful. Kafur, assisted by the muster-master Khwaja 
Hajji, laid the country waste, took much booty, and 
brought the rebel Hindu and his sons to Delhi. The 
sultan treated the captive raja v/ith all honour, gave 
him a royal canopy and the style of ' Kings of Kings,' 
and presenting him with a lac of tankas (^10,000) 
sent him back to govern Devagiri as his vassal. 

In the following year Kafur and Hajji were dis- 
patched on a more ambitious errand : they were 
ordered to take the fort of Warangal, in Telingana, 
towards the eastern Ghats, the capital of the Kaka- 
tiya rajas. On the march through his territories 
Rama Deva displayed the dutiful behaviour of a 
rayat, assisted the army in every way, and contri- 
buted a contingent of Marathas, thus justifying the 
sultan's confidence. The mud fort of Warangal was 
taken by assault, the stone fort was invested, and 



114 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

the raja surrendered his treasures and agreed to pay 
tribute. Kafur returned to Delhi with a booty of a 
hundred elephants, 7,000 horses, and quantities of 
jewels. In i3iothe same generals pushed their way 
to the Malabar coast, took the old capital of Dvara- 
samudra, almost as far south as Mysore, destroyed 
the great temple of the golden idols in Ma'bar,* 
bringing home in the early part of 131 1 no less than 
612 elephants, 20,000 horses, coffers of precious 
stones and pearls, and 96,000 mans of gold, which, 
taking the man at no more than \ cwt., amounts to 
1200 tons of gold. Considering the vast wealth of 
the Hindu shrines, which had never before been 
despoiled in the Deccan, the sum, though doubtless 
exaggerated, is not absolutely incredible. The 
treasure was brought to the palace of Siri, and the 
sultan presented the officers of the fortunate cam- 
paign with gifts of gold by the hundredweight. 
The rajas of Devagiri and Warangal paid their trib- 

^ Kafur founded a mosque on the coast. If it was the same mosque 
' built by the officers of Sultan Ala-ad-din ' at ' Seet Bunda Ramessar,' 
which Firishta says was repaired by the Bahmanid Sultan Mujahid 
about 1378, it must have been on the Malabar or west coast of India. 
' Ramessar ' cannot be Ramesvara, which is on the Coromandel coast 
opposite Ceylon. Cape Ramas, south of Goa, as suggested by 
Briggs,- seems a more probable identification. Ma'bar, which Was- 
saf defines as extending from Kulam (Quilon) to Nilawar (Nileswara) 
has usually been identified with the Coromandel or east coast. But 
this Persian traveller, who wrote about 1300, not only defines 
Ma'bar as above stated, but describes it immediately after Gujarat, 
and states that Persian horses were exported ' to Ma'bar, Kambayat 
(Cambay), and other ports in their neighbourhood ' (Elliot and 
DowsON, iii, 33). The fact that Kafur marched on to Ma'bar from 
Dvara-samudra agrees with Wassaf's definition. 



KAFUR 



115 



ute, and the northern part of the Deccan acknow- 
ledged the suzerainty of Delhi. 

This was the climax of Ala-ad-din's reign. He 
had done much. The Mongols were no longer the 
terror of the Panjab. The army was never stronger, 
as its victories in the Deccan proved, and never 
cheaper, owing to the regulated price of provisions. 
Rebellion had ceased to raise its head, and the se- 
verity of its repression had procured a security to 
the agriculturist and safety of the roads such as had 
never been known before. The control of the mar- 
kets not only insured cheap food at the capital but 
honest dealing, according to Barani, — but the eulogy 
is probably relative. Temperance had been forced 
upon the people, and, with the example of the sober 
court, men of learning and piety abounded. Such 
results testify to the greatness of a remarkable king. 

The inevitable and swift reaction came from the 
sultan's own faults, exaggerated by an increasing dis- 
ease. His violent temper led him to displace expe- 
rienced governors; his infatuation for Kafur bred 
envy and disunion and caused the death or imprison- 
ment of trusted counsellors. His sons, prematurely 
emancipated from the schoolroom, took to drink and 
debauchery. The disputes of the nobles and the 
riotous behaviour of the heir encouraged revolts on 
all sides. In the midst of the confusion Ala-ad-din 
died (January, 1 3 16) of a dropsy. A bloody and 
unscrupulous tyrant, none may refuse him the title 
of a strong and capable ruler. 

The death of the strong man was followed by the 
results too common in Eastern history. There was 



Il6 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

no one fit to stand in his place. The favourite Kafur 
seized upon the government, and set up Shihab-ad- 
din Omar, a child of six years, on his father's throne. 
Two elder sons of the late king were deprived of 
sight with atrocious cruelty. The chief queen was 
robbed and turned out of the palace. The miscreant 
was even plotting a general massacre of the great 
nobles, when one night some foot soldiers fortunately 
contrived to murder him in his bedroom. His re- 
gency had lasted scarcely more than five weeks. 
Another son of Ala-ad-din, after acting for a few 
months as governor over his infant brother, sent him 
away blinded, and took the throne himself in April, 
13 16, with the title of Kutb-ad-din Mubarak Shah. 

No more violent contrast to the stern and capable 
father could be imagined. Mubarak was an easy- 
going good-tempered youth of seventeen, the slave 
of his own pleasures, and everything reverted to the 
old lax way. The genial new king opened the gaols 
and let seventeen thousand prisoners loose ; pre- 
sented the army with six months' pay ; distributed 
his largesse and grants promiscuously. All the new 
taxes and penalties were abolished, and all dread of 
the sultan and of the revenue officer's scourge van- 
ished. * Men were no longer in doubt and fear 
of hearing '* Do this, but don't do that; say this, 
but don't say that ; hide this, but don't hide that ; 
eat this, but don't eat that ; sell such as this, 
but don't sell things like that ; act like this, 
but don't act like that." ' Everyone took his ease 
and indulged his tastes, like his sovereign. The 
wine-shops were re-opened and all the world drank. 



THE RULE OF THE PARIAH II7 

Prices went up, the new tariff was forgotten, and the 
bazar people, rejoicing at the death of their perse- 
cutor, cheated and fleeced as they Hsted. Labourers' 
wages rose twenty-five per cent.; bribery, extortion, 
and peculation flourished. The Hindus, relieved of 
the recent exactions, were ' beside themselves with 
joy. They who had plucked the green ears of corn 
because they could not get bread, who had not a 
decent garment, and had been so harassed and beaten 
that they had not even time to scratch their heads, 
now put on fine apparel, rode on horseback, and 
shot their arrows.' In short everyone did as he 
pleased and enjoyed himself to the full, and India 
was her old happy-go-lucky self again. 

The sultan set his subjects a bad example. Utterly 
careless and unspeakably depraved, he threw himself 
heart and soul into all the wretchlessness of unclean 
living. Openly by night and by day he displayed 
his contempt for decency. So eager was the demand 
at court for mistresses that the price of a pretty girl, 
who could be bought in the late reign for a couple of 
pounds, ran up to as much as ^200. Like his father 
the young sultan had a vile favourite, a Hindu Par- 
wani, a pariah of the lowest class from Gujarat, 
whom he styled Khusru Khan, and under his cor- 
rupt influence Mubarak became more shameless 
than ever: his very speech became foul and obscene, 
he tricked himself in woman's clothes, and let his 
major domo indulge his horseplay upon the nobles in 
full court stark naked. No more was the sultan seen 
at the public prayers in the mosque of his fore- 
fathers ; the fast of Ramazan was openly violated. 



Il8 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

With this wholesale abandonment of religion and 
morals the reckless youth's temper began to show 
the ferocity of his vindictive father. When Hari- 
pala Deva, the son of the late Rama Deva, rebelled 
at Devagiri, Mubarak had him flayed alive. When 
the king's cousin Asad-ad-din, indignant at the way 
things were going, got up a conspiracy and was be- 
trayed, not only were the plotters beheaded in front 
of the royal tent, but twenty-nine young brothers of 
the leader, children wholly innocent of the plot, 
were slaughtered like sheep, and the women of the 
family were turned out homeless into the streets. 
His own brothers did not escape his fury. Three of 
them, including the ex-child-king, were in the fort of 
Gvvaliar, blinded and helpless. All three were mur- 
dered. The governor of -Gujarat was executed for 
no fault ; the new Hindu raja of Devagiri, Yak- 
lakhi, revolted, and had his nose and ears cut off; 
the old and tried nobles of the late sultan, by the 
intrigues of the Hindu pariah, were disgraced, ban- 
ished, blinded, imprisoned, and scourged. Finally 
one night in March, 1321, the favourite murdered his 
master, and the headless trunk of Mubarak Shah 
was seen by the light of torches falling from one of 
the palace windows. He amply deserved his fate. 

Then began a hideous reign of terror. Khusru 
mounted the throne as Sultan Nasir-ad-din, ' the 
Helper of the Faith,' and there followed an orgy of 
blood and violence such as had never before been 
heard of in India. The harim of the sultan was 
brutally ravished ; everyone worth killing was killed 
in the palace ; three days after the murder of his 



THE WARDEN OF THE MARCHES 1 19 

sovereign Khusru took to wife the queen of his vic- 
tim, a Hindu princess to whom such an alliance was 
an unspeakable profanation ; the wives and daughters 
of the royal family and of the great nobles were 
delivered over to the scum of Khusru's pariahs ; ' the 
flames of bloodshed and brutality reddened the 
sky.' The holy Koran was desecrated ; idols were 
set up in the mosques. The reign of an unclean 
pariah was as revolting. to the Hindus themselves as 
to the Muslims. Had a Rajput attempted to rally 
the still powerful forces of his countrymen and to 
make a bid for the throne, the chaos of the times 
might have given him a chance of success. The stub- 
born defence of Rantambhor and Chitor showed that 
the Hindu chiefs were far from subdued. But no In- 
dian of any race or creed, save the outcast sweepers 
of his own degraded and despised class, would follow 
a Parwani. 

The hope of the Muslims lay in one man, the only 
man of whom the Hindu upstart went in abject fear. 
This was Taghlak, the warden of the marches, who 
had held the frontier against the Mongols since 
the great days of Ala-ad-din's victories, and had 
routed them in a score of battles.* Taghlak placed 
himself at the head of all that was left of the old no- 
bility and set out from his frontier post to save Delhi 
from its obscene devourer. The affrighted pariah 
collected all the troops he could muster, emptied the 

* Ibn-Batuta in 1340 saw an inscription of Taghlak's on the 
mosque at Multan which ran ' Twenty-nine times have I fought with 
the Tatars and routed them and hence am I called al- Malik al-Ghazi ' 
(Ed. Defremery, iii, 202). 



I20 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

treasury of every farthing, and scattered all the hoard 
among the soldiers. Most of the Muslims took his 
money, heartily cursed the giver, and went to their 
homes: they were not the men to take up arms 
against Ghazi Taghlak, the champion of the faith. 
With his Hindus and such few contemptible Mo- 
hammedans as his gold could buy, Khusru attempted 
to withstand his enemy's march ; but his forces were 
utterly routed, the Parwanis were slaughtered where- 
ever they were found, and their abject master was 
caught hiding in a garden, and beheaded (August, 
1 321). So ended four months of the worst tyranny 
that India ever knew. 

Taghlak assembled the nobles and officers and 
bade them bring forward any scion of the royal 
family that might have survived, and set him on the 
throne. There was not one left. ' O Ghazi Malik,' 
they shouted with one voice, ' for many years thou 
hast been our buckler against the Mongols and hast 
warded them away from our country. Now thou 
hast done a faithful work which will be recorded in 
history : thou hast delivered the MusHms from the 
yoke of Hindus and pariahs, hast avenged our bene- 
factors and earned the gratitude of rich and poor. 
Be our king.' And they all did homage to the new 
sultan. 




CHAPTER VI 

A MAN OF IDEAS 

MOHAMMAD TAGHLAK 

I32I-I388 

THE old soldier did not belie his reputation. 
The trusty warden of the marches proved a 
just, high-minded, and vigorous king. Under his 
firm hand order was restored as if by magic. Every- 
thing possible was done to repair the misfortunes of 
the unhappy ladies of the late court, and to punish 
their persecutors. Orders were given to reduce the 
taxation on agricultural lands to a tenth or eleventh 
of the produce, and to encourage the tillers to greater 
production. The Hindus were more heavily taxed, 
yet not to the verge of poverty. In the verse of 
Amir Khusru : 

* Wisdom and prudence in all that he did were revealed; 
The faculties' hoods seemed under his crown concealed.' 

Peace and prosperity once more reigned in Hindu- 
stan, and two expeditions under Taghlak Shah's 
eldest son Prince Jauna, then known as Ulugh 



121 



122 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Khan, recovered the Deccan provinces as far as 
Telingana, which the recent troubles had encouraged 
to revolt. Taghlak himself led his army to Bengal, 
which had never been even nominally subject to 
Delhi since the death of Balban, and there he re- 
ceived the homage of the provincial viceroy of Lakh- 
nauti, Nasir-ad-din (grandson of Balban's son Bughra 
Khan), and carried in chains to Delhi his recalcitrant 
brother Bahadur Shah, who styled himself king in 
eastern Bengal. On his return from this expedition 
the gallant old sultan met his death (1325) by the 
fall of a roof which crushed him beneath its ruins. 
His body was found arched over his favourite child 
whom he strove in his last moments to protect. 
There seems little doubt that the catastrophe was 
treacherously planned by his eldest son.^ 

It is in this son. Prince Jauna, who ascended the 
throne as the Sultan al-Mujahid Mohammad ibn 
Taghlak, that the main interest of the Karauna'' 
dynasty abides. In each of the three dynasties that 
ruled India throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries there was one conspicuously remarkable 
figure. Among the slave kings it was Balban, 
the man of action ; among the Khaljis it was Ala- 

* It is so asserted by the Moorish traveller Ibn-Batuta, who was at 
Delhi sixteen years later, and had his information from an eye-wit- 
ness. See Defremery's ed., iii, 212-214. 

2 Karauna is evidently Marco Polo's Caraonas (ed. Yule, i, 99), 
explained as meaning half-breeds, ' sons of Indian (possibly Biluchi) 
mothers by Tatar fathers.' The Karawina, described by Wassaf as 
the artillerymen of the Chaghatai army in Khurasan, may be the 
same race, and the Mongols used to nickname the Chaghatai Turk§ 
Karawanas (Ross, Tarikh-i-Rashidi, 76*, 77*). 



124 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

ad-din, the crude but daring political economist; 
among the Karaunas it was Mohammad Taghlak/ 
the man of ideas. The history of the East, as we 
have said, centres in its kings, and the history of 
Eastern dynasties is apt to consist of the rise of one 
great man and the decay of his successors. Moham- 
mad Taghlak was the most striking figure in mediae- 
val India. He was a man with ideas far beyond his 
age. Ala-ad-din had brought a vigorous but un- 
cultivated mind to bear upon the problems of gov- 
ernment ; Mohammad Taghlak was even more daring 
in his plans, but they were the ideals of a man of 
trained intellect and tutored imagination. He was 
perfect in the humanities of his day, a keen student 
of Persian poetry — the Latin of Indian education, — 
a master of style, supremely eloquent in an age of 
rhetoric, a philosopher, trained in logic and Greek 
metaphysics, with whom scholars feared to argue, a 
mathematician and a lover of science. The contem- 
porary writers extol his skill in composition and his 
exquisite calligraphy, and his beautiful coinage bears 
witness to his critical taste in the art of engrossing 
the Arabic character, which he read and understood 
though he could not speak the language fluently. 

In short he was complete in all that high culture 
could give in that age and country, and he added to 
the finish of his training a natural genius for original 
conception, a marvellous memory, and an indomita- 
ble will. His idea of a central capital, and his plan 
of a nominal token currency, like most of his schemes, 

^ So commonly called, for Mohammad-i-Taghlak, the Persian 
equivalent of the Arabic Mohammad ibn (son of) Taghlak. 



MOHAMMAD TAGHLAK 



125 



were good ; but he made no allowance for the native 
dislike of innovations, he hurried his novel measures 
without patience for the slow adoption of the peo- 
ple, and when they grew discontented and rebelled 
he punished them without ruth. To him what 
seemed good must be done at once, and when it 
proved impossible or unsuccessful his disappoint- 
ment reached the verge of frenzy, and he wreaked 
his wrath indiscriminately upon the unhappy offend- 
ers who could not keep pace with his imagination. 
Hence with the best intentions, excellent ideas, but 
no balance or patience, no sense of proportion, Mo- 
hammad Taghlak was a transcendent failure. His 
reign was one long series of revolts, savagely re- 
pressed ; his subjects, whom he wished to benefit 
and on whom he lavished his treasure, grew to loathe 
him ; all his schemes came to nothing, and when 
after twenty-six years he died of a fever on the 
banks of the Indus, he left a shattered empire and 
an impoverished and rebellious people. 

Yet he began his reign with everything in his 
favour. He followed a deeply revered father, and 
he had a high reputation of his own. He was known 
to be a great general, and his private life was tem- 
perate and even austere. All India was quiet, and 
the distant provinces had been recovered. The sus- 
picion that his father's sudden end was deliberately 
planned by the son may have set the people against 
him ; but neither Barani nor Firishta support the 
story, and it is not certain that it was generally be- 
lieved. Even if it were, such murders were too com- 
jnon to form an ineffaceable stigma. Mohammad 



126 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Taghlak failed by his own mistaken government, not 
on account of an initial crime. 

As a rule he never consulted anybody, and formed 
his projects unassisted ; but one day he sent for the 
historian Barani, who was often in attendance at 
court, and frankly discussed affairs with him. ' My 
kingdom is diseased,' he complained, ' and no treat- 
ment cures it. The physician cures the headache, 
and fever follows ; he strives to allay the fever, and 
something else supervenes. So in my kingdom dis- 
orders have broken out ; if I suppress them in one 
place, they appear in another ; if I allay them in 
one district, another becomes disturbed. What 
have former kings said about these disorders?' The 
man of history cited instances of the abdication of 
kings in favour of their sons, or of a sovereign's re- 
tirement from the affairs of state, which were left to 
wise vezirs. The sultan seemed to approve the idea 
of abdication, adding ' At present I am angry with 
my subjects and they are aggrieved with me. The 
people are acquainted with my feelings, and I am 
aware of their misery and wretchedness. No treat- 
ment that I employ is of any benefit. My remedy 
for rebels is the sword. I employ punishment and 
use the sword, so that a cure may be effected by 
suffering. The more the people resist, the more 
I inflict chastisement.' 

The series of tortures and executions described by 
Ibn-Batuta is too horrible to relate, and the frequent 
scenes at Delhi, which the Moorish traveller witnessed, 
where the trained elephants, with tusks armed with 
iron blades, tossed the victims in the air, trampled 



FEROCIOUS CRUELTY \2J 

them under foot, and carved them into shces, make 
one's blood run cold. The sultan's own brother and 
nephew did not escape his ferocity : suspected of 
treason the former was beheaded in the presence of 
his brother ; the nephew fled to the raja of Kampila, 
brought destruction upon his protector, and when 
caught himself, was flayed and roasted alive, and his 
cooked flesh sent to his family. One can hardly be- 
lieve that such enormities could have been committed 
by a man of Mohammad Taghlak's refinement. 

Apart from such monstrous barbarities, his great 
mistake — a capital error in an Eastern country — 
was that he could not let well or ill alone. He was 
too clever not to see the ills, but not clever enough 
to know that they were better undisturbed, Quieta 
non movere was never his motto : rather was it ' be 
instant in season and (especially) out of season.' On 
the whole his was a fine principle, a high ideal ; but 
the reaction when he found his ideal unattainable 
was violent and deplorable. Ibn-Batuta knew him 
well in the latter part of his reign, and was well able 
to judge his character. This is his portrait of the 
sultan : — 

* This king is of all men the one who most loves to 
dispense gifts and to shed blood. His gateway is 
never free from a beggar whom he has relieved and a 
corpse which he has slain. Tales are spread abroad 
among the people of his generosity and courage, as 
of his bloodshed and vindictiveness towards offend- 
ers. With all this he is the humblest of men and the 
most eager to show justice and truth. The rites of 
religion find full observance with him, and he is 



128 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

strict in the matter of prayer and in punishing its 
neglect. . . . But what is pre-eminent in him is 
generosity.' 

The boundless prodigality of the sultan was indeed 
one of the causes of his troubles. Even the wealth 
of India, reinforced by the spoils brought back from 
the Hindu cities of the Deccan, now again under 
control, could not meet the extravagance of his 





GOLD COIN OF MOHAMMAD TAGHLAK, STRUCK AT DELHI, 
A.H. 726 (A.D. 1326). 

generosity and the magnificence of his court. To 
foreigners he was specially hospitable, preferring 
them to natives, says the Moorish traveller, who him- 
self enjoyed the sultan's high favour and was pre- 
sented with fiefs and large sums of money, appointed 
to a judgeship, and finally sent as Mohammad's am- 
bassador to China. When distinguished strangers 
came to Delhi, the sultan would settle upon them 
the revenues of so many villages or districts, which 
maintained them in luxury during their visit and 
enabled them to go home in affluence. The almost 
incredible largesse he scattered among these vis- 
itors and among learned men, poets, officials, and 
umadwars of all degrees, impoverished the treasury 



OPPRESSIVE TAXATION i^Q 

which the tranquil prosperity of his father's brief 
reign had replenished, and the immense expeditions 
which the sultan prepared for visionary foreign con- 
quests completed the ruin of his finances. His pro- 
ject of conquering Persia kept a huge army standing 
idle, and another dream of invading China led to 
a disastrous check in the passes of the Himalayas 
where money and men were spilt like water. 

The drain on the treasury compelled fresh taxa- 
tion, and there is no doubt that an oppressive fiscal 
system in a country where the margin of agricultu- 
ral profit is minute was the chief rock upon which 
Mohammad Taghlak's government split. The first 
project which the sultan formed (says Barani), and 
which led to the ruin of the country and the decay 
of the people, was an attempt to get five or ten per 
cent, more tribute from the lands in the Doab, the 
fertile plain between the Ganges and the Jumna. 
He introduced oppressive cesses and made stoppages 
from the land. returns until the backs of the rayats 
were broken. The cesses were collected so rigor- 
ously that the peasants were reduced to beggary. 
The rich became rebels, and the lands fell out of cul- 
tivation. The effects spread to other provinces ; 
the peasants became alarmed, lost confidence, aban- 
doned their lands, burned their stacks, turned their 
cattle loose, and took to the jungles. Irritated at 
the failure of the revenue the sultan hunted the 
wretched Hindus like wild beasts, ringed them in 
the jungles as if they were tigers, and closing in mas- 
sacred them wholesale. The Doab, Kanauj, and all 
the country as far as Dalamau, were laid waste and 



130 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

every man captured was killed and his head hung on 
the rampart of a town. Landowners and village 
chiefs were sacrificed as well as humble rayats. A 
deficiency of the seasonable rains aggravated the 
distress, and famine stalked about the land and 
mowed down the unhappy people for years. 

It was partly the melancholy condition of Hindu- 
stan, but still more the inconvenience of a distant 
northern capital to an empire which was spreading 
more and more in the Deccan, that induced the 
sultan to take the step of transferring the seat of 
government to Devagiri, which he now renamed 
Daulatabad, * the empire-city,' in the Maratha coun- 
try not far from Poona. The insecurity of the roads, 
as well as the long distances, made Delhi an unsuit- 
able centre, and we find that sometimes the revenue 
of the Deccan was allowed to accumulate for years 
at Daulatabad from sheer inability to transport it 
safely to the capital. Whether the Maratha city 
would have been more convenient may be ques- 
tioned, at least for the eastern part of the empire, 
but for the west and south it might have answered 
well enough. There was nothing preposterous in 
the sultan's plan. The Deccan provinces — for it 
was now divided into four — extended as far south 
as Kulbarga near the Bhima tributary of the Krishna 
river, and though it is not easy to define their east- 
ward boundary it probably reached to the Godaveri, 
though Telingana was rather a tributary state than 
a part of the empire. 

Had he contented himself with merely shifting 
the official court, the change would have been rea- 



DELHI DEP OP ULA TED 1 3 1 

sonable and practical. But he must needs transport 
the whole population of Delhi summarily and en 
masse to the new capital. What this meant may be 
realized when it is remembered that the Delhi which 
Ibn-Batuta described was a vast city, ten miles across, 
composed of successive suburbs built round the forts 
and palaces of different kings. There was old Delhi, 
the city of the Ghazni rulers ; near by stood Siri, 
afterwards named the Dar-el-Khilafa, ' Abode of the 
Caliphate,' founded by Ala-ad-din ; Taghlakabad 
was the suburb built by the sultan's father, whose 
palace was roofed with glittering gilt tiles {karamida 
fnudhahhabd) ; and Jahanpanah, * the Refuge of the 
World,' was the name given to the new city which 
Mohammad Taghlak dominated from his stately 
palace. The great wall of old Delhi, which aston- 
ished the Moorish visitor by its thickness and its in- 
genious arrangement of guardrooms and magazines, 
had twenty-eight gates ; arid the great mosque, the 
Kutb Minar, and the splendid palaces, excited the 
admiration of the traveller who had seen all the cities 
of the East and their wonders. He never tires of 
expatiating on the grandeur of the royal receptions 
and stately pageants in the 'thousand columned' 
hall of ' the World's Refuge.' Yet the Delhi he saw 
was a city slowly recovering from what seemed to 
be a deathblow. All the people had been forcibly 
removed years before, and the place was still com- 
paratively empty. The heart-broken inhabitants 
were made to give up their familiar homes and cher- 
ished associations, and, taking with them their serv- 
ants and their children and such belongings as they 



132 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

could carry, to trudge the weary march of seven 
hundred miles to a strange country which could 
never replace the beautiful city where they were born 
and to which they were bound by every tie of love 
and memory. Many died on the way, and of those 
who reached Daulatabad few could resist the home- 
sickness and despondency that kill the Indian in 
exile. They were chiefly Muslims, but they were 
forced to live in an 'infidel' country, and they gave 
up the ghost in passive despair. The new capital 
became the nucleus of the cemeteries of the exiles. 

The ill-considered plan had failed : Daulatabad 
was a monument of misdirected energy. The long 
road, a forty days' journey, between Delhi and the 
new capital, laid out with infinite care, bordered 
with trees all the way like an avenue in a park, with 
frequent inns and rest-houses, only beckoned the 
exiles home. The sultan, who had the wisdom to 
recognize his failure, ordered the people back to 
Delhi, but few survived to return. He imported 
'learned men and gentlemen, traders and landhold- 
ers ' from the country to repopulate the deserted 
capital ; but they did not flourish, and it was long 
before Delhi recovered its prosperity. The Moor 
found the great suburbs sparsely occupied and the 
city still seemed almost deserted. 

It is but just to the hasty sultan to admit that he 
did his best to remedy some of his mistakes. If he 
could not repeople Delhi at a stroke with the rapidity 
with which he had emptied it, he did much to miti- 
gate the distress caused by famine and excessive 
taxation. He abolished (in 1341) all taxes beyond 



A FORCED CURRENCY 133 

the legal alms and the government tithes, and him- 
self sat twice a week to receive the complaints of the 
oppressed. He distributed daily food to all the 
people of Delhi for six months in a time of scarcity, 
and he organized an excellent system of government 
loans to agriculturists which would have been of 
great service but for the dishonesty of the overseers. 
To meet the heavy drain upon the treasury he made 
his famous experiment of a token currency, which 
raised a storm as furious as that which raged round 
Wood's halfpence in the days of Swift. He may 
have taken the idea from the paper-money issued by 
Khubilai Khan in China, or from the paper notes 
with which a Mongol khan of Persia had recently 
endeavoured to cheat his subjects. But Mohammad 
Taghlak's forced currency was not intended to de- 
fraud, and as a matter of fact accidentally enriched the 
people, whilst the substitution of minted copper for 
paper was a new idea. The copper token was to 
pass at the value of the contemporary silver tanka, 
and of course its acceptance depended upon the 
credit of the public treasury. Mohammad Taghlak 
has been called * the Prince of Moneyers,' and there 
is no doubt that he devoted much attention to his 
coinage and dealt with it in a scientific way. ' So 
important indeed,' says the greatest authority on 
Indian numismatics,^ ' did he consider all matters 
connected with the public currency that one of the 
earliest acts of his reign was to remodel the coinage, 
to adjust its divisions to the altered relative values of 

^ E. Thomas, Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Delhi (1871), 
207, 233. 



134 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

the precious metals, and to originate new and more 
exact representations of the subordinate circulation. 
The leading motive . . . seems to have been 
the utilization of the stores of gold which filled the 
sultan's treasuries ; and, without proposing to intro- 
duce a definite gold standard, which under the sur- 
rounding circumstances would doubtless have proved 
impracticable, he appears to have aimed at a large 
expansion of the currency of the land by direct 
means, associated with an equitable revision of the 
basis of exchange between gold and silver, which 
had been disturbed by the large accessions of the 
former from the Deccan, unaccompanied by any 
proportionate addition to the supply of the latter.' 

He was thus an expert in currency questions, and 
when he introduced his copper tokens he was taking 
a step of which he should have known the conse- 
quences. The curious point is that, whilst no doubt 





BRASS MONEY OF MOHAMMAD TAGHLAK STRUCK AT DELHI, 
A. H. 731 (1330-31 A.D.) 

fully aware that the value of the token depended 
upon the credit of the treasury, he forgot that 
it was absolutely essential to the success of his 
innovation that none but the state should issue 
the tokens. In those days however there was no 
milling or other device of costly machinery to dis- 



THE TOKENS CALLED IN 1 35 

tinguish the issues of the royal mint from private 
forcreries. To forge in gold was expensive, but any 
skilled Hindu engraver could copy the inscriptions 
and strike copper tokens of the value of tankas in 
his own behalf. The result was natural. ' The pro- 
mulgation of this edict,' says Barani, 'turned the 
house of every Hindu into a mint, and the Hindus 
of the various provinces coined crors and lacs' of 
copper coins. With these they paid their tribute, 
and with these they purchased horses, arms, and fine 
things of all kinds. The rajas, village headmen, and 
landowners grew rich upon these copper coins, but 
the state was impoverished. In those places where 
fear of the sultan's edict prevailed, the gold tanka 
rose to be worth a hundred of the [token] tankas. 
Every goldsmith struck copper coins in his work- 
shop, and the treasury was filled with these tokens. 
So low did they fall [after a time] that they were 
not valued more than pebbles or potsherds. The 
old coin, from its great scarcity, rose four-fold and 
five-fold in value. When trade was interrupted on 
every side, and when the copper tankas had become 
more worthless than clods, the sultan repealed his 
edict, and in great wrath he proclaimed that whoever 
possessed copper coins should bring them to the 
treasury and receive the old ones in exchange. 
Thousands of men from various quarters who pos- 
sessed thousands of these copper coins, and caring 
nothing for them had flung them into corners along 
with their copper pots, now brought them to the 

1 It is hardly necessary to explain that a lac {lakh) is 100,000, and 
a cror {karor) 100 lacs. 



* 



136 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

treasury and received in exchange gold tankas and 
silver tankas, etc. So many of these copper tankas 
were brought to the treasury that heaps of them 
rose up in Taghlakabad like mountains,' — and there 
they were seen a century later in the days of Mu- 
barak Shah II. How the treasury contrived to 
meet this extraordinary run on its reserve is not ex- 
plained. As Mr. Thomas pointed out, if good money 
was paid for every token, true or forged (and there 
was no means of distinguishing good from bad), the 
sultan's temporary loan from his own subjects must 
have been repaid with more than even oriental rates 
of interest. 

All these innovations harassed and annoyed the 
people and made the sultan unpopular. The failure 
of his schemes embittered him and his extreme 
severity towards all who contravened his enact- 
ments brought widespread discontent and rebellion. 
There were other causes for insurrection. The pro- 
vincial officials were no longer the old feudal land- 
owners, attached by ties of race and gratitude to 
their Turkish sovereigns. The Turks had been 
displaced ; the triumph of the Khaljis had loosened 
the old bonds that knitted the governing class 
together ; a new dynasty that was neither pure 
Turk nor Khalji was in power, and the officers gov- 
erning the provinces were hungry adventurers, often 
foreigners, Afghans, Persians, Khurasanis, Mongols, 
whom the sultan overwhelmed with costly gifts. 
These men had none of the old loyalty, such as it was, 
and it was from them, known as * the foreign amirs' 
that the revolts came which shattered the empire. 



UNIVERSAL REBELLION 137 

In the early years of his reign Mohammad Taghlak 
had ruled a state wider, larger, and more splendid 
than any of his predecessors. Whilst even the great 
Ala-ad-din struck his coins only at Delhi and Deva- 
giri, the name and titles of Mohammad Taghlak 
shone upon the issues of the mints of Delhi, Agra, 
Tirhut (called Taghlakpur), Daulatabad, Warangal 
(called Sultanpur), Lakhnauti, Satgaon and Sonar- 
gaon in Bengal. A contemporary writer gives a list 
of twenty-three provinces subject to the sultan of 
Delhi, from Siwistan, Uchh, Multan, and Gujarat, 
by the Indus, to Lakhnauti in Bengal and Jajna- 
gar in Orisa, and from Lahore near the Himalayas 
to Dvara-samudra and the Malabar coast. Never 
again till the time of Aurangzib did a king of Delhi 
hold so wide a sway. Piece by piece the empire 
dropped away. One province after another re- 
volted, and though the sultan was usually victorious 
and punished the rebels without mercy, he could 
not be everywhere at the same time, and whilst one 
insurrection was being crushed, another sprang up 
at the other end of his dominions. We hear of re- 
volts in Multan, in Bengal, in Ma'bar, at Lahore, 
again in Multan, then at Samana, now at Warangal 
and next near Oudh, at Karra and in Bidar, at 
Devagiri and in Gujarat. Some of them were never 
suppressed, and Bengal and the Deccan were lost to 
the kingdom. 

It was in vain that Mohammad Taghlak invoked 
the shade of a great name and obtained the sanction 
of the Abbasid caliph of Cairo to his title as ortho- 
dox king of India. In vain he received the mantle 



138 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

and diploma of investiture (1343), and welcomed a 
beggarly descendant of the famous caliphs of Bagh- 
dad with peculiar solemnity and humble deference 
to his splendid court at Delhi and even set the 
sacred foot upon his own proud neck. Nothing 
could restore the loyalty of the people or of 
their governors. Experiments and innovations had 
harassed them and brought much suffering ; fre- 
quent executions and even massacres had exasper- 
ated them. No one trusted the changeable and 
impetuous king, whose fiery temper had been mad- 
dened by disappointment and revolts and who 
punished small and great offences with the same 
merciless ferocity. The end came whilst he was 
putting down a rebellion in Gujarat and Sind. He 
pursued the chief rebel towards the mouth of the 
Indus ; but he was already ill with fever, and, still 
full of eager plans for crushing the Sumras of 
Thatta and seizing the rebel leader whom they were 
sheltering, Mohammad Taghlak died on the banks 
of the river in March, 135 1. He had brought ex- 
ceptional abilities and a highly-cultivated mind to 
the task of governing the greatest Indian empire 
that had so far been known, and he had failed stu- 
pendously. It was a tragedy of high intentions 
self-defeated. 

After his death India recovered like a sick man 
after an exhausting fever, and the troubles subsided 
as the waves after a storm. The disturbing force 
was gone, and the people showed that they could be 
quiet enough if they were let alone. Mohammad 
Taghlak left no sons, but his cousin Firoz Shah 



FIROZ SHAH 139 

was at once elected to the throne by the chiefs of 
the army then fighting in Sind, and after defeating 
the rebels he had no difficulty in making his acces- 
sion sure. An attempt to set up a pretended son of 
the late sultan at Delhi collapsed on his approach, 
and thenceforward during the thirty-seven years of 
his reign there was not a single rebellion. This was 
certainly not due to any vigour of the sultan. Firoz 
was a man of forty-five, whose mother was a Hindu 
princess of Dipalpur, who nobly gave herself to his 
father in order to save her people from the exactions 
with which they were vindictively oppressed when 
the Raja Mai Bhatti at first proudly refused to give 
a Rajput princess to a mere half-bred Turk. Their 
son had been carefully brought up by his brave 
uncle, the warden of the marches, and had been 
trained in the art of government by that talented 
but wrong-headed projector Mohammad Taghlak, 
with whom he lived as a son for many years. Prob- 
ably the lessons of his preceptor were read back- 
wards ; at all events Firoz reversed his predecessor's 
policy in every detail. 

It was characteristic of the merciful and pious dis- 
position of the new king that, after burying his cousin 
with all honour, he sought out the victims of his 
ferocity or their representatives and endeavoured as 
far as possible to indemnify them for their sufferings 
and losses. When this was done he collected the 
attested documents in which they admitted the re- 
paration they had received and expressed themselves 
satisfied. All these papers he placed in the tomb of 
the tyrant, in the pious hope * that God would show 



140 MEDIJEVAL INDIA 

mercy to my patron and friend.' It was a gracious 
and beautiful act. Firoz possessed in an overflowing 
degree the milk of human kindness, that supreme 
gift of sympathy and tenderness which made the 
whole Indian world his kin. He has been charged 
with weakness and fatuity, but it was a weakness 
that came very near the Christian ideal of love and 
charity, and it brought peace and happiness to a land 
which had been sorely tormented. Like his name- 
sake, Firoz the Khalji, the new sultan had a horror 
of bloodshed and torture. He had seen too much 
of both under his cousin's rule, and he resolved that 
ihey should cease. ' The great and merciful God,* 
he wrote in his own touching memoirs, ' taught me. 
His servant, to hope and seek for His mercy by 
devoting myself to preventing the unlawful slaying 
of Muslims and the infliction of any kind of torture 
upon them or upon any men.' 

So gentle a king was not made for the glories of 
conquest ; he abhorred war and clearly was no 
general; if not content to leave the revolted 
provinces alone, he made little effort to recover 
them. The Deccan was allowed to become inde- 
pendent under Hasan Gangu, the founder of the 
Bahmanid dynasty, whose sultans ruled all the 
provinces south of the Vindhyas for i8o years. 
Bengal also remained independent, though Firoz 
twice attempted to bring it back under subjection. 
On the first campaign (1353) he was absent from his 
capital eleven months, and after winning a great 
battle, in which 180,000 Bengalis are said to have 
been slain, he refused to storm the fort of Ikdala in 



CONQUEST OF THATTA 141 

which the king of Bengal had taken refuge, for fear 
of shedding more of the blood of the faithful, and 
sadly returned to Delhi. In the second expedition, 
six or seven years later (1359-60), though he had 
70,000 cavalry, infantry 'past numbering,' 470 ele- 
phants, and all the paraphernalia of war, he concluded 
a treaty of peace with the Bengal king, and then pro- 
ceeded to lose himself and his army whilst elephant- 
hunting in Padmavati, in the wilds of Jajnagar, and 
only after great privations and much difficulty found 
his way back to Delhi, where no news had been 
received of him for six months. He had been away 
two years and a half. 

A later expedition to conquer Thatta, which 
Taghlak had failed to subdue, occupied about the 
same length of time. With 90,000 horse and 480 
elephants Firoz marched to Bhakkar. Part of the 
force descended the Indus in 5000 boats, the rest 
marching along the bank. Famine and pestilence 
reduced the horses, and after a battle with the 
Samma Jam or ruler of Sind, who had a large army 
and had never owned an overlord, the sultan made a 
'strategic retreat ' towards Gujarat, pursued by the 
enemy, who captured his boats. On the retreat all 
the horses died ; treacherous guides inveigled the 
army into the salt marshes of Kachh, and they lost 
themselves in the desert. Again for six months the 
sultan and his army disappeared from human ken ; 
not a word of them reached Delhi, and the vezir had 
to forge cheering dispatches to relieve the public 
anxiety. The sultan however doggedly held to his 
purpose, refitted his army in Gujarat, sent thrice to 



142 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Delhi for reinforcements, and in a second invasion, 
after some trouble in crossing the Indus, succeeded 
in occupying Sind, and starved the jam into sur- 
render. The native ruler was brought to Delhi in 
all honour, and his son was made jam in his stead. 
This was the only victorious exploit of the reign of 
Firoz, except the reduction of Nagarkot, and it was 
won at great cost. The sultan had again been away 
from his capital for two years and a half. 

In any other reign there would undoubtedly have 
been a revolution and a rival king during these long 
absences. But Firoz possessed a treasure in his 
vezir, a converted Hindu of good family from 
Telingana, named Makbul Khan, who had held the 
highest offices under the dangerous favour of 
Mohammad Taghlak. Over Firoz the wise though 
illiterate Hindu gained such influence that the sultan 
used to say that Khan-i-Jahan, ' lord of the world,' 
as he was entitled by virtue of his office, was the 
real king of Delhi. So fond was the sultan of his 
invaluable vezir that he allowed an income of over a 
thousand a year to every son that was born to him, 
and yet more by way of marriage portion to each 
daughter ; and as Makbul was an uxorious person, 
who kept two thousand ladies in his harim, ranging 
from olive Greeks to saffron Chinese, these endow- 
ments must have reached a considerable sum. But 
the vezir was worth his money. As the sultan's 
deputy and alter ego he held the state securely while 
his master was away, stood always between him and 
official worries, and administered the kingdom with 
exceptional skill and wisdom. If the borders were 



MILD ADMINISTRATION 143 

more limited than before, the smaller area was better 
developed and made more productive. 

It was doubtless due to Makbul's influence, sec- 
onded by the Rajput blood which Firoz inherited 
from Bibi Naila, that the new regime was marked 
by the utmost gentleness and consideration for the 
peasantry. It will be remembered that the pre- 
ceding sultan had instituted a system of government 
loans in aid of the agriculturists. These loans the 
rayats, who had not yet recovered from the distress 
caused by Mohammad Taghlak's exactions, were 
wholly unable to repay. By the advice of the vezir 
the ofiflcial records of these debts were publicly de- 
stroyed in the sultan's presence, and the people were 
given a clean bill. Taxation was brought back to 
the limits prescribed by the law of the Koran, and 
any attempts at extortion were sternly punished. 
*Thus,' says Afif, the panegyrist of the reign, who 
was a frequent attendant at the court of Firoz, 'the 
rayats grew rich and were satisfied. Their homes 
were filled with corn and goods, horses and furni- 
ture ; everyone had plenty of gold and silver; no 
woman was without her ornaments and no house 
without good beds and divans. Wealth abounded 
and comforts were general. The whole realm of 
Delhi was blessed with the bounties of God.* 

Nor was this all. The sultan was an enthusiastic 
builder. He had a passion for naming and founding 
towns. When a son (Path Khan, ' victory-lord *) was 
born to him on his first march to Delhi after his 
accession, he immediately laid the foundations of a 
town on the site of the happy event and called it 



144 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

Fathabad, ' the city of Fath ' or ' of victory/ On 
his Bengal campaigns he rechristened Ikdala * Azad- 
pur,' and Panduah ' Firozabad,' and founded the new- 
city of Jaunpur (Jaunanpur) in honour of his cousin 
the late king. In the province of Delhi he not only 
built Fathabad and Hisar Firoza, but also a second 
Firozabad on the Jumna, ten miles from the capital, 
which became the Windsor of his London, where he 
chiefly resided, and whither the people of Delhi 
used to resort in crowds, making holiday by the 
river, along whose banks the new city spread for 
six miles. Here he set up one of the two Asoka 
pillars which he had removed from their original 
places. He had famous architects in Malik Ghazi 
Shahna and Abd-al-Hakk, who employed an im- 
mense staff of skilled workmen, all duly paid from 
the treasury after the plans had been approved and 
the necessary grants assigned. 

One result especially of these new foundations was 
of incalculable benefit to the country. To supply 
his new city of Hisar Firoza the sultan constructed 
(1355) a double system of canals, from the Jumna 
and the Sutlej, one of which, 'the old Jumna canal,' 
still to this day supplies the district with irrigation 
along two hundred miles of its ancient course, and 
now brings the water to Delhi. A later historian, 
Firishta, credits Firoz with not less than 845 public 
works, canals, dams, reservoirs, bridges, baths, forts, 
mosques, colleges, monasteries and inns for pilgrims 
and travellers, to say nothing of repairing former 
buildings, such as the Kutb Minar and many of the 
tombs of the kings of Delhi. Curiously not a single 



FIROZ THE BUILDER 



145 



road is mentioned, though that was the greatest 
want of India. Of all these, the canals were the 




TOMB OF FIROZ SHAH AT DELHI. 

chief blessing to the people. By the improved irri- 
gation, they were able to get in two harvests instead 
of one. The superintendence of the canals was in- 



146 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

trusted to skilled engineers who examined the banks 
during the rainy season and floods and reported on 
their condition. In return for this benefit the sultan 
levied a water-rate of ten per cent, on the outlay. 
Another wise step was the reclaiming of waste lands 
by the government, the proceeds of which were de- 
voted to the support of religion and learning. Firoz 
annually allowed more than a third of a million 
pounds (36 lacs) to learned men and pious endow- 
ments, and a million (100 lacs) was distributed every 
year in pensions and relief to the poor. The sultan 
was not only a great builder but a large gardener. 
He planted twelve hundred gardens near Delhi and 
many elsewhere, and the produce, among which 
white and black grapes of seven varieties are men- 
tioned, brought in ^8000 net profit to the treasury. 
The three sources of water-dues, reclaimed lands, 
and market gardens added nearly thirty thousand 
pounds to the annual revenue, which Afif reckoned 
at six crors and eighty-five lacs of tankas (^^6,850- 
000) throughout the reign — about a third of the 
revenues of Akbar two centuries later. Of this the 
fertile Doab alone contributed ^800,000. 

It is not clear whether this revenue includes the 
rents of the villages and lands which were assigned 
to public officials as salary, but it probably does not. 
This method of paying public servants was strongly 
condemned by the sultan Ala-ad-din, as tending to 
feudal power and fostering rebellion ; and Firoz was 
the first to adopt it generally. During his reign it 
worked well, but it may be questioned whether it 
did not contribute to the break-up of the kingdom 



FIEFS AND SLA VES 1 47 

which ensued after his death. The grants indeed 
often amounted to viceroyalties of great power, and 
we find large districts and even provinces assigned 
to eminent nobles. Thus Karra and Dalamau were 
granted to Mardan Daulat with the title of 'King 
of the East ' ; Oudh and Sandila and Koil formed 
separate fiefs; Jaunpur and Zafarabad were given 
to another amir; Gujarat to Sikandar Khan, and 
Bihar to Bir Afghan. All these nobles were ex- 
pected to defend their frontiers and manage their 
internal affairs. Another deduction which must be 
considered in estimating the revenue was due to the 
sultan's system of allowing his great fief-holders so 
much for every well-grown, good-looking, and well- 
dressed slave, whom they furnished for the service 
of the court.' When the feudatories, that is, most 
of the high ofifiicers of the state, came to pay their 
annual visit to the capital — a kind of rent-audit — 
they brought not only presents for the sultan, of 
horses, elephants, camels, mules, arms, gold and 
silver vessels, etc., but also from ten to a hundred 
slaves apiece, for whom a corresponding deduction 
was allowed from their taxes or rents. The chief 
who brought the most valuable contribution was 
held in most esteem, and thus the system of annual 
presents to the king, which became so onerous a tax 
under the Moghul emperors, began to prevail. The 
slaves were well educated at court, and trained 
either for the army, for palace employment, or for 

* These slaves were captured in war, doubtless against insubor- 
dinate Hindu chiefs ; we read of ' 400 slaves, children of chiefs, 
and Abyssinians' presented by the governor of Gujarat in 1376. 



148 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

mechanical trades. There were 40,000 of them on 
guard at the palace, and 12,000 artisans, in Delhi, 
and altogether not less than 180,000 slaves were 
supported by the government. They had a depart- 
ment of their own, with a treasury, muster-master, 
and distinct officials. When the sultan went abroad 
he was escorted by thousands of these slaves, — arch- 
ers, swordsmen, halberdiers, and packmen mounted 
on buffaloes. Never before had slaves been so 
largely employed, though Ala-ad-din had mustered 
over 50,000. 

The court to which these pampered servants min- 
istered was luxurious but orderly. It is true the 
sultan was somewhat addicted to wine, and on one 
occasion, in the midst of the Bengal campaign, the 
general Tatar Khan discovered his sovereign in an 
undignified position, lying half-dressed on his couch, 
with a mysterious sheet concealing something under 
the bed. Tatar Khan saw what was the matter, and 
both were speechless with surprise. At last he be- 
gan a little sermon on the wickedness of indulgence 
at such a time of anxiety. The sultan inquired 
what he meant, and asked innocently if anything 
untoward had happened. The khan pointed to the 
hidden wine cups under the bed and looked solemn. 
Firoz said he liked a modest drop now and then to 
moisten his throat, but Tatar was not to be molli- 
fied. Then the sultan swore that he would drink 
no more wine whilst the khan was with the army. 
So the general thanked God and went out. But 
Firoz soon afterwards bethought him that the khan 
was much needed at the other end of the kingdom, 



BENEVOLENCE OF FIROZ 1 49 

and sent him there in all haste. Several times the 
sultan was lectured by holy men on his weakness, 
but he worked off his excesses by vigorous hunting, 
to which he was enthusiastically devoted, and the 
vice cannot have gone to such lengths as to interfere 
with affairs of state — at least so long as the able 
Hindu vezir was there to control them. 

The testimony of all contemporary chroniclers 
shows that Firoz was adored by the people. It was 
not only that he reformed abuses, checked extortion, 
reduced taxation, increased irrigation, and enlarged 
the markets and opportunities of labour : he was 'a 
father to his people,' took care of the needy and un- 
employed, refused to dismiss aged ofificials but let 
their sons act for them, — ' the veteran,' he said, ' may 
thus stay at home in comfort, whilst the young ride 
forth in their strength ' ; — 'he contrived the marriages 
of poor Muslims who could not otherwise afford the 
usual dowries, and provided state hospitals for the 
sick of all classes, native and foreign. Kindly to 
the Hindus, he yet sternly forbade public worship 
of idols and painting of portraits, and taxed the 
Brahmans, who had hitherto been exempt.^ A de- 
vout Muslim, he kept the fasts and feasts and public 
prayers, and in the weekly litany the names of his 
great predecessors were commemorated as well as 
his own and that of the caliph who had sanctioned 
his authority. When an old man he went on pil- 
grimage to the shrine of the legendary hero Salar 

' The poll-tax {jizyd) on non-Muslims was p^4, £2, or £\, ac- 
cording to their rank ; the Brahmans were taxed at rather more than 
the third rate. 



150 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

Mas'ud at Bahraich, humbly shaved, as an act of 
piety. He never did anything without consulting 
the Koran, and even selected a governor in accord- 





GOLD COIN OF FIROZ SHAH, A. H. 788 (A. D. I386). 

ance with a fal or lucky omen in the sacred book. 
Making every allowance for the exaggeration of the 
court chronicler, his panegyric, written after the 
sultan's death, is probably not misplaced : * Under 
Firoz all men, high and low, bond and free, lived 
happily and free from care. The court was splendid. 
Things were plentiful and cheap. ^ Nothing unto- 
ward happened during his reign. No village re- 
mained waste, no land uncultivated.' 

His old age was troubled by the loss of his great 
vezir, who died in 1371 ; three years later the death 
of the crown prince Fath Khan shook the aged 
sultan grievously. He surrendered all authority 
into the hands of the late vezir's son, the second 
Khan-i-Jahan, and when the latter fell by the influ- 
ence of Prince Mohammad in 1387, the old king 
transferred the royal elephants to the prince and 
allowed him to rule as he pleased. Unfortunately 
Mohammad was given to pleasure, and his mis- 

' Some prices may be quoted : Wheat 3d. (8 jitals) the quarter 
{man); barley i|^d., grain i^d. the quarter; sugar id. to i-^d. the 
sir or # lb. 



A PIOUS KING 151 

government excited a formidable rebellion of the 
slaves who formed so important a faction in Delhi. 
Firoz himself had to come forward to quell the 
revolt, which instantly subsided at his appearance ; 
and t»he prince fled. The sultan next appointed his 
grandson Taghlak Shah II, son of Fath Khan, to 
administer the realm, and very soon afterwards died 
(Sept., 1388), 'worn out with weakness,' at the age 
of ninety. No king since Nasir-ad-din had so 
appealed to the affections of his subjects ; * none 
had shown himself so just, and merciful, so kind and 
religious — or such a builder.' In the brief and 
modest memoirs which the sultan left, he recites 
some of the successful efforts he made to repress 
irreligion and wickedness, and to restore good gov- 
ernment, just law, kindness, and generosity to the 
people, in the place of torture and bloodshed and 
oppression. ' Through the mercy which God has 
shown to me,' he says, 'these cruelties and terrors 
have been changed to tenderness, kindness, and com- 
passion. ... I thank the All-Bountiful God for 
the many and various blessings He has bestowed 
upon me.' 



CHAPTER VII 



DISINTEGRATION 



PROVINCIAL DYNASTIES 



1388-I451 



THE long and prosperous reign of Firoz Shah 
had assuaged the troubles of the people, but it 
had not strengthened the authority of the crown. 
Firoz was loved, perhaps respected, but certainly not 
feared. A generation had grown up who knew 
nothing of the inexorable despotism of a Balban, an 
Ala-ad-din, or a Mohammad Taghlak, and the dread 
of the sovereign was like a forgotten dream. The 
people did not rebel, because they were contented 
and had nothing to gain by revolution. The success 
of the reign was due to the personal character of the 
sultan and his prudent vezir: there was nothing to 
warrant the expectation that similar tranquillity would 
follow the accession of a new ruler. On the contrary, 
there were elements of the sultan's own creating 
that made for disintegration. 

The system of depending upon a powerful body 
of slaves for civil and military service led to far- 

152 



HINDU REVIVAL 1 53 

reaching consequence. Many of these slaves were 
converted — or nominally converted — Hindus, and to 
some of these renegades were assigned the great 
fiefs of the empire. However sincere their loyalty 
to Firoz their master, they were bound by no such 
ties to his successors, and their influence tended to 
encourage that Hindu independence which had been 
fostered by the sultan's mild rule. The intermarriage 
of the royal family and other dignitaries with Hindus 
could produce no real amalgamation between peoples 
effectually sundered alike by race, religion, and social 
custom. The Hindus paid tribute when compelled, 
but their free tribes and aristocratic chiefs were 
always eager to shake off the yoke of the foreigners, 
and in the years following the death of Firoz one of 
the most notable features of the disturbed period is 
the large part played in politics by Hindu leaders, 
whether slaves converted to the court religion, or 
rajas who had asserted their independence but were 
not above concerting insurrections with their renegade 
fellow-countrymen. Thus on the one hand we see 
the great provinces held in fief by successful courtiers, 
slaves, often renegade Hindus, whose power tended 
to become hereditary and to develop independent 
dynasties ; on the other, a universal revival of the 
old Hindu chiefships and of the independence of 
the hill tribes. 

A strong ruler might possibly have stemmed the 
tide which was engulfing the power of Delhi, but 
even he must have bent and broken before the 
storm which burst upon India ten years after the 
death of Firoz. In those ten years there was no 



154 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

king of even moderate capacity. Fath Khan, the 
hope of his father, was dead ; the next son, Zafar, 
was also gone. The old sultan's grandson Taghlak 1 1 
was young and foolish, addicted to wine and dis- 
sipation, and the amirs and palace slaves rose and 
killed him before he had lolled on the throne five 
months. Another grandson Abu-Bekr was opposed 
by his uncle Mohammad, the prince whom the 
slaves had expelled from his regency under Firoz, 
and who had since established some sort of authority 
from Samana to Nagarkot in the Pan jab, and after 
several unsuccessful efforts secured Delhi in 1390. 
His four years' reign was vexed by a series of re- 
bellions ; the Hindu chiefs were everywhere in revolt, 
the great feudatories under no control ; and the perse- 
cution and banishment of the foreign slaves (whose 
nationality was tested by a Hindi shibboleth) did 
nothing to mitigate their disruptive influence. 
Mohammad's son Humayun, proudly entitled 
'Alexander' (Sikandar Shah), died after a reign 
of six weeks, and though his brother Mahmud sat 
on the throne for eighteen years (i 394-141 2), that 
throne was for some time set up at Kanauj, and 
even when at Old Delhi, his cousin Nasrat Shah, son 
of Fath Khan, held a rival court at the new capital 
of Firozabad close by ; thus there were two kings at 
Delhi, and both were mere puppets in the hands 
of ambitious amirs. 

Such was the chaotic state of the kingdom of 
Delhi when Timur descended upon it with his 
ninety-two regiments of a thousand horse each. The 
great conqueror, whose career is familiar to all in the 



INVASION OF TIMUR 1 55 

pages of Gibbon, had already overrun all Persia and 
Mesopotamia to the frontier of the Ottoman em- 
pire in Asia Minor on the west, and occupied Afghan- 
istan on the east, before the wealth of India drew 
him to the invariable road of Central Asian invaders. 
When he laid the project before his council of war 
there was strenuous dissuasion. Five great rivers to 
cross, dense jungles, fierce warriors led by terrible 
rajas couched in forest fastnesses like wild beasts in 
their lairs, and mailed elephants with deadly armed 
tusks — these, said the chiefs, were obstacles enough. 
But others recalled the example of Mahmud the 
Idol-breaker with far inferior forces, and Timur's 
sons urged the surpassing riches of India and the 
pre-eminence of such a possession, whilst the men of 
religion dwelt on the duty of the Holy War against 
the infidels. The objectors still insisted that even 
if successful their hardy race would surely degen- 
erate and their descendants grow soft and effeminate 
even as the natives of Hindustan — a prediction 
verified two centuries later; — but Timur was not to 
be put off. ' My object,' he wrote or caused to be 
written in his memoirs, ' my object in the invasion of 
Hindustan is to lead a campaign against the infidels, 
to convert them to the true faith according to the 
command of Mohammad (on whom and his family 
be the blessing and peace of God), to purify the 
land from the defilement of misbelief and polytheism, 
and overthrow the temples and idols, whereby we 
shall be ghazis and mujahids, champions and soldiers 
of the faith before God.' His will prevailed over the 
doubting men of war, and the venture was resolved. 



156 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

An advanced force under his grandson Pir Mo- 
hammad, who held Kabul, descended upon the 
Indus at the close of 1397, and besieged Multan. 
Timur himself, confirmed in his resolution by his 
forerunner's report of the distracted state of the 
country, left Samarkand in March, 1398, struggled 
through the ' stony girdles of the earth,' through ice 
and snow, descended appalling precipices in pursuit 
of the infidel tribes, and crossed the Indus at Attok, 
where Jalal-ad-din had swum the river when es- 
caping from Timur's ancestor Chingiz Kaan. ' On 
the eastern bank of the Hyphasis, on the edge of the 
desert, the Macedonian hero halted and wept ' : 
the Tatar conqueror indulged no such sensibility 
but threw a pontoon across the Chinab, and, joined 
by his grandson, who had now taken Multan, pressed 
steadily eastward. Fearful stories of the plundering 
and massacring of the people preceded him, and the 
inhabitants of Dipalpur fled to the protection of 
the Rajput fortress of Bhatnir, in vain, for Timur 
stormed it and slew 10,000 Hindus in an hour. 
Sirsuti was found deserted, Fathabad was empty, 
everyone had hurried panic-stricken into the jungle. 
In December the invading host stood encamped on 
the plain of Panipat, the battle-field of Delhi, but 
there was no man to oppose them. A week later 
Timur was before the capital. 

On the 17th December, 1398, the decisive battle 
was fought. Timur crossed the Jumna and carefully 
surveyed the ground. He took unusual precautions 
to allay the terrors of his troopers, who were ex- 
travagantly nervous about the invincible elephants 



INVASION OF TIMUR 1 57 

of the enemy. He issued calthrops (' claws of iron ') 
to the troops to throw before these alarming beasts, 
and defended the camp with a strong abatis of brush- 
wood and trees, behind which he placed the women, 
stores, and cattle, as well as ' the good and learned 
men of the army ' who, on being consulted where 
they would wish to be stationed during the battle, 
modestly expressed a wish to be ' placed with the 
ladies.' The immense number of Hindu prisoners, 
reckoned at 100,000, could not safely be left in the 
camp, and Timur ordered them all to be slain in 
cold blood. Then taking an augury from the Koran, 
and scouting the warnings of the astrologers, he set 
out his forces for battle. 

The Indian army under Ikbal Khan and the sul- 
tan Mahmud did not refuse the challenge. They 
mustered 10,000 horse and 40,000 foot, with 125 
elephants in mail with poisoned blades fastened to 
their tusks and howdahs fitted with hand-grenades 
and fireworks to frighten the horses. The battle 
was ordered on each side in the usual manner : 
vaward, rearward, centre, right and left wings. 
Timur rode to a neighbouring knoll and recon- 
noitered them as they approached, then bowed him- 
self on the earth and prayed to God for victory. 
He mounted in full assurance that his prayer was 
heard. Completing his arrangements, he strength- 
ened his vaward and right wing, and the signal for 
the battle was given by the roll of drums. A well- 
concealed flanking movement took the Indian ad- 
vance-guard in the rear and scattered them. The 
right wing under Pir Mohammad drove in the Indian 



158 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

left by a steady discharge of arrows, and followed it 
up with the sword. The left, equally successful, pur- 
sued the enemy's right up to the gates of Delhi. 
The Indian centre still held out under Ikbal and the 
sultan, but Timur sent orders to pick off the mahauts 
and wound the riderless elephants. The Indian 
soldiers, says the conqueror, ' showed no lack of 
courage, but bore themselves manfully in the fight ' ; 
they were out-numbered and out-generalled, how- 
ever, and finally took to flight. The sultan and 
Ikbal Khan escaped with difficulty to the city, 
trampling their own men under the elephants in the 
crush, and that night they fled to the mountains, 
basely leaving their wives and children behind. The 
victory was complete, and Timur, pitching his camp 
by the tomb of Firoz, gave thanks to God with tears. 
The leading men came out and surrendered the 
city on the following day, and in deference to the 
pleading of the ulama and other wise and pious 
Muslims the conqueror accepted a ransom for the 
lives of the people. There was to be no sack and 
no massacre. Unfortunately the collection of the 
ransom led to brawls on the 26th, and Timur's 
humane intentions were frustrated. It was no 
doubt difficult to restrain a great army of Turks, 
who had been accustomed for years to slaughter 
and pillage wherever they went. For three days 
the unhappy city was turned into a shambles. ' All 
my army, no longer under control, rushed to the 
city and thought of nothing but killing, plundering, 
and making prisoners.' Every man got from twenty 
to a hundred captives, many of whom Timur sent to 



DEPARTURE OF TIMUR t^Q 

Samarkand to teach the famous handicrafts of India 
to his own people. There were immense spoils of 
rubies, diamonds, pearls, gold and silver ornaments 
and vessels, silks and brocades. Only the quarter 
inhabited by the sayyids and ulama — the heads of 
the Muslim religion — escaped the general sack. 
Siri, Jahanpanah, and old Delhi had been com- 
pletely gutted. 'Although I was wishful to spare 
them, I could not succeed, for it was the will of God 
that this calamity should fall upon the city.' 

After a fortnight of state functions, feasts and 
levees, it occurred to Timur that he had come to 
Hindustan to wage a Holy War upon the infidels, 
and that he ought to be stirring (Jan. i, 1399). After 
entering the fort of Firozabad on the Jumna, and 
praying in its mosque, he took Mirat by storm, 
massacred the men, took the women and children 
prisoners, and razed the town to the earth. He 
then pushed north to Hardwar, where he had heard 
of the image of the sacred cow from whose mouth 
the Ganges was supposed to flow and whither the 
Hindus made pilgrimage to the mysterious source 
of the holy river. Such superstition roused the 
zealot's passion, and the wretched Indians were 
made to pay dearly for the legend. Crossing the 
Ganges, after a veritable orgy of slaughter, the 
soldier of the faith prostrated himself in gratitude 
to God, and felt that he had accomplished his mission 
in Hindustan. He had come, he said, for two pur- 
poses : to war with infidels for the sake of the 
rewards of the next world, and to seize this world's 
riches, since ' plunder in war for the faith is as 



l6o MEDIjEVAL INDIA 

lawful to Muslims as their mother's milk, and the 
consumption of that which is lawful is a means of 
grace/ Lacs of infidels had been dispatched ' to 
the fires of hell/ and the zealous warriors of Islam 
were laden with spoils. Enough had been done, 
and it was time to turn homewards and see what 
was going on at the other end of Asia. Fighting 
his way through the Siwalik hills, beneath Mussooree, 
driving the heathen into the Himalaya valleys, 
plundering and burning villages as he proceeded, 
seizing Nagarkot and Jammu, and detaching a force 
to take Lahore, Timur and his invincible host marched 
beneath the sloping eaves of India, and, after a final 
rhinoceros hunt, disappeared up the Afghan valleys. 
In March the fearful visitation was over. 

When the Scourge of God had departed, men 
came out of their hiding-places like the hare when 
the hunter has passed. Fortunately, in his haste to 
return to Samarkand, Timur had been able to harry 
but a small part of India ; but wherever his army 
had trampled, from the Indus to the Ganges, over 
the whole of the Panjab, desolation and famine were 
left behind. Thenceforward, until the days of the 
Moghul empire, Delhi never regained her old as- 
cendancy. For a time Ikbal Khan, the vezir, held 
the capital, drove out Nasrat Shah, and made vig- 
orous efforts to put down the growing hostility of 
the Hindu chiefs, who were now independent at 
Etawa, Gwahar, and many other strongholds. 
Sultan Mahmud found Delhi insupportable with all 
the power in the vezir's hands, and set up a separate 
court at Kanauj, until the death of Ikbal in a battle 



THE SAYYIDS AT DELHI l6l 

with Khizr Khan, the viceroy of Multan, in 
November, 1405, set him free and enabled him to 
return to the capital and rule a kingdom which had 
shrunk to little more than the Doab and Rohtak. 
The next six or seven years were spent in a struggle 
between the great feudatories, in which the dissolute 
and incompetent sultan played a sorry part, and 
when Mahmud died in 141 2 there was no king left 
at Delhi. The government was conducted by the 
Lodi amir Daulat Khan, but he made no assumption 
of royal dignity. 

Nor did his successor assume the title of king. 
Khizr Khan, the founder of the dynasty of Sayyids, 
who claimed descent from the family of the Arabian 
Prophet, had prudently cast in his lot with Timur 
when the 'noble Tartarian' invaded India; and on 
taking the command at Delhi, in May 1414, he made 
no pretension to be more than Timur's deputy. 
There is no evidence however that this allegiance 
was anything more than a politic fiction, whilst the 
coinage issued by Khizr bore the names of Firoz 
and other defunct kings of the late dynasty as 
guarantees of its authenticity. The history of the 
Sayyid dynasty, which numbered four rulers, con- 
sisted mainly in a perpetual struggle to retain some 
sort of control of the small territory still attached to 
the kingdom of Delhi. How small this was will be 
realized when it is stated that almost yearly cam- 
paigns were undertaken to extort the annual tribute 
from the Hindu raja of Katehr (Rohilkhand, north- 
east of Delhi), from Mewat on the south, and from 
Etawa in the Doab. We read of frequent rebellions 



1 62 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

in the north-west at Sirhind and Jalandhar, generally- 
headed by Jasrath, a Gakkar leader of the Murree 
hills; of revolts at Koil (Aligarh), Badaun, Etawa ; 
of pursuits of rebels into the mountains of Rupar 
near Simla on the north ; of invasions and intrigues 
by the Timurid governor of Kabul, and by the 
rulers of Malwa and of Jaunpur. 

'Khizr's seven years' tenure of power presents but 
few incidents of mark ; there is a seeming oriental 
want of energy to sustain an accomplished triumph, 
an air of ease which so often stole over the senses of 
a successful owner of a palace in Delhi ; and so his 
vezir and deputy, Taj-al-mulk, went forth to coerce 
or persuade, as occasion might dictate, the various 
independent chiefs, whether Muslim or Hindu, 
whose states now encircled the reduced boundaries 
of the old Pathan kingdom. There were of course 
the ordinary concessions to expediency, so well un- 
derstood in the East, submission for the moment in 
the presence of a superior force, insincere profes- 
sions of allegiance, temporizing payments of tribute, 
or desertion of fields and strongholds easily re- 
gained ; but there was clearly no advance in public 
security or in the supremacy of the central govern- 
ment. The inevitable law of nature had, no doubt, 
been asserting itself anew in the ready recovery of 
the free Hindu tribes as against the effete dominancy 
of the domesticated Muslims ; but this process had 
been in continuous action from the day when the 
thin wedge of Mohammedanism first thrust itself 
amid the overwhelming population of India, whose 
almost Chinese attachment to ancient ideas would 



THE SAYYIDS. AT DELHI 163 

have resisted far more persuasive arguments than the 
sharpest edge of a scimitar or the most eloquent ex- 
hortations of the latest inspired preacher of Islam. 
Added to this normally antagonistic element there 
had intervened in higher quarters an amalgamative 
process of intermarriage with Hindu females and an 
admission of Hindu converts upon very easy terms 
to all the honours of Mohammedan nobility ; so that 
any prestige the conquering race might once have 
claimed was altogether subdued if not degraded by 
these inconsistent concessions ; and it required some- 
thing more revolutionary than the accession of a 
local sayyid to perpetuate a new dynasty.' * The 
murder of Khizr's successor Mubarak Shah by his 
vezir, followed by the dispatch of that minister 
whilst he was attempting to assassinate the next sul- 
tan, led to worse anarchy and paved the way for the 
accession, in 145 1, of the Afghan Bahlol Lodi and a 
new line, whose rule for a time restored somewhat of 
the faded splendour of Delhi. 

The rest of India was split up into numerous inde- 
pendent states, whose annals are for the most part 
unwritten or unworthy of record. Petty rulers, like 
Ahmad Khan of Mewat, held the land to within 
a dozen miles of Delhi to the south ; and Darya 
Khan, the Lodi, matched him in his government of 
Sambhal on the north. There were independent 
chiefs in the Doab and at Biana, Hindu rajas at 
Kampila and Patiala and other places which had 
formerly owned the sovereignty of Delhi. Out of 
the ruck of small principalities, Hindu and Muslim, 

^ Thomas, Chronicles of the Pathan Kings ^ 327, 338, 



164 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

some half dozen great dynasties stand forth in Ben- 
gal, Oudh, Malwa, Gujarat, and the Deccan. 

Bengal. The governors of Bengal had long 
attained independence, and assumed the style and 
authority of kings ; and since the days of Mohammad 
Taghlak there had been scarcely an attempt at in- 
terference from Delhi, beyond the futile and half- 
hearted, campaigns of the pacific Firoz. Within its 
own borders, however, Bengal was often divided 
against itself. Rival kings ruled eastern and western 
Bengal from the two cities of Sonargaon (near 
Dhaka) and Satgaon (close to Hugh), until these af- 
ter a long struggle were united to Lakhnauti under 
Ilyas Shah in 1352 and the provincial capital was 
fixed at Panduah, to which Firoz gave his own 
name. Firozabad remained the capital of the whole 
province till 1446, when the seat of government was 
removed again to Lakhnauti, which now received the 
name of Gaur, and later the epithet of Jannatabad 
or ' Paradise-town.' Very little is recorded of the 
annals of the numerous rulers of Bengal who gov- 
erned the province, together with part of Bihar, and 
latterly Jajnagar, Orisa, Tipara, Kamrup, and Chitta- 
gong, from the days of Mohammad Ghori (1202) to 
the conquest by Akbar in 1576. Some were Khaljis, 
some were Turks ; a Hindu established a brief dy. 
nasty which was converted to Islam ; and at the 
close of the fifteenth century a series of Abyssinian 
kings, derived from the African bodyguard imported 
by the eunuch sultan Barbak, held the throne ; 
the latest kings were Afghans. Provincial as these 



GOLDEN MOSQUE AT GAUR. 



165 



1 66 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

sovereigns were, they maintained great state and lux= 
ury, and the remains of their architecture bear witness 
to their taste. 

JauNPUR. For splendour of architecture, how- 
ever, the ' Kings of the East,' or Sharki Maliks of 
Jaunpur, stand supreme in the period before the 
Moghul empire. Upon the decline of the Delhi 
kingdom the eunuch Sarwar, who became Khwaja-i- 
Jahan and vezir under the last sultans of the house 
of Taghlak, was sent in 1394 into ' Hindustan ' — the 
land of Hindus, a term used specifically to denote the 
country about Benares and Oudh, where the Hindus 
were still practically independent — and took up his 
residence at Jaunpur, the new city founded on the 
Gumti opposite Zafarabad by his late master Firoz. 
He soon * got the fiefs of Kanauj, Karra, Oudh, San- 
dila, Dalamau, Bahraich, Bihar, and Tirhut into his 
own possession, and put down many of the infidels, 
and restored the forts which they had destroyed. 
The Almighty blessed the arms of Islam with power 
and victory. The raja of Jajnagar and the king of 
Lakhnauti now began to send to Khwaja-i-Jahan the 
[tributary] elephants which they had formerly sent 
to Delhi.' Thus began the dynasty of the ' Kings of 
the East,' which subsisted in conspicuous power for 
nearly a century. Their dominions stretched along 
the plain from Kanauj to Bihar, and from the 
Ganges to the Himalaya Tarai, and occupied most 
of the country corresponding roughly with the later 
kingdom of Oudh between the dominions of Delhi 
and Bengal. 




MINAR OF FIROZ II AT GAUR (1488), 



167 



1 68 



MEDIMVAL INDIA 



Jaunpur, the town of Jauna, i. e. Mohammad Tagh- 
lak, supplanting the many-templed Hindu city of 
Ratagarh (afterwards named by the Muslims Zafara- 
bad, ' triumph-town '), was the first Mohammedan 




FORT OF JAUNPUR, EAST GATE. 



stronghold planted in the very midst of the most 
Hindu part of northern India. Mahmud of Ghazni 
had never reached this point, but legend records 
the triumphant march of his nephew, the youthful 
and heroic Salar Mas'ud, who ravaged the land up 
to the gates of Benares and threw down the temples 
of Ratagarh. He met his death in battle with the 



KINGS OF THE EAST 169 

Hindus, and dwells for ever in the reverent memory 
of the Muslims, who for centuries visited his grave 
at Bahraich, where the martyr prince is said to have 
appeared to the aged sultan Firoz and warned him 
of his approaching end.^ On the site of the temple 
where Ramachandra slew the giant demon Kavala- 
vira, still the scene of Hindu worship, Firoz built 
the fort which developed into the populous capital 
of the Sharki kings. Sarwar's successors, descended 
from his adopted sons, the children of Karanfal {i. e. 
' Clove '), a slave water-bearer of Firoz's court, not 
only maintained the integrity of their dominions 
and resisted the attacks of Ikbal Khan and the 
Delhi troops, but made Jaunpur a seat of learning, a 
refuge for men of letters in those days of confusion 
and strife, and an example of noble building. 

Ibrahim Shah, who reigned from 1401 to 1440, 
was the most distinguished figure among the six 
^ Kings of the East.' He not only repelled alike the 
military and the diplomatic advances of Mahmud, 
the sultan of Delhi, but even invaded the capital 
himself in 141 3 during the confusion which ensued 
upon Mahmud's death, retiring however when Khizr 
Khan appeared upon the scene. The Sayyids tried 
conclusions with Ibrahim in 1427, but after a well- 
fought battle beside the Jumna peace was ratified by 
the marriage of Bibi the daughter of Mubarak Shah 
to the crown prince of Jaunpur. An invasion by the 
king of Malwa in 1435 was rewarded by the capture 

' See A. FuHRER and E. W. Smith, The Sharqi Architecture of 
yaunpur, 2 — 16, to which the following account of Sharki history 
is indebted. 



I/O 



MEDIEVAL INDIA 



of Kalpi, which had been a bone of contention be- 
tween the three kingdoms of Delhi, Jaunpur, and 
Malwa ; but thenceforward to his death Ibrahim 
reigned in peace, an energetic and benevolent prince, 
beloved of his people, a zealous Muslim, and an en- 




ATALA DEVI MOSQUE, AT JAUNPUR. 



lightened patron of art and learning. The beautiful 
Atala mosque built in 1408 is his chief monument. 
Its characteristic feature, a lofty inner gateway of 
simple grandeur, recalling the propylon of Egyptian 
temples, supplied the place of a minaret, and con- 
cealed from the quadrangle the too dominating 



JAUNPUR 171 

outline of the great dome which covered the house 
of prayer. The graceful two-storeyed colonnades, 
five aisles deep, round the spacious quadrangle, 
broken by minor domes and gateways, the fine ash- 
lar masonry of its plain buttressed exterior, the 
exquisite and rich, yet never intricate, floral orna- 
ment surrounding its doors and windows and prayer- 
niche, its geometrical trellis screens and panelled 
ceilings, are typical of a pure style of Saracenic art, 
with scarcely a trace of Indian influence. Even in 
such a land of precious stones of architecture, the 
Atala Masjid remains a gem of the first water. 

Ibrahim's successor Mahmud, whose eighteen 
years* reign was from time to time disturbed by the 
necessity or temptation to take part in the struggle 
then centred round the decayed power of Delhi, 
which he besieged in 1452, also left a monument in 
the mosque of the Lai Darwaza, or Ruby Gate, so 
called from the vermilion entrance to the palace of 
his wife Bibi Raji, who built the adjacent mosque ; 
and their son Husain completed the magnificent 
Jami' Masjid or cathedral mosque, which Mahmud 
had begun and of which the foundation had been 
laid as far back as the last years of Ibrahim. This 
glorious building, the sister and the rival of the 
Atala mosque of his grandfather, is a worthy me- 
morial to a king whose ambition, urged by a high- 
spirited wife, another princess of Delhi, soared to 
the possession of the throne of Mohammad Taghlak ; 
and whose campaigns extended his frontier till they 
embraced Etawa, Sambhal, and Badaun, made the 
raja of Gwaliar his vassal, and spread the terror of 



172 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

his arms over Orisa. The new Afghan king of Delhi, 
Buhlol, was too strong for him in the end, and a fatal 
battle near Kanauj in 1477 deprived Husain of all 
his possessions. He was allowed to dwell for some 
years at the city which he and his ancestors had em- 
bellished, and then fled to Bihar, whilst his sup- 
planter, the son of Buhlol, laid low his beautiful 
capital, demolished the stately palaces, destroyed 
the royal tombs, and was with difficulty dissuaded 
from razing even the mosques to the ground. The 
kingdom of Delhi once more touched the frontier 
of Bengal. 

Malwa, At the time when the new state of 
Jaunpur was beginning to wedge itself between 
Delhi and Bengal, two other powerful kingdoms 
broke away from the central power under local dy- 
nasties in Malwa and Gujarat. One of Firoz Shah's 
great fiefholders, Dilawar Khan, a descendant of the 
Ghori kings, who held the fief of Dhar among the 
spurs of the Vindhya range, made himself independ- 
ent in 1401 during the confusion that followed 
Timur's invasion, and soon extended his authority 
over the greater part of the ancient Hindu kingdom 
of Malwa, which had resisted the encroachments of 
the Muslims up to the time of Balban, but had 
since been a province more or less subject to the 
kings of Delhi. The old capital, Ujjain, had been a 
famous seat of Indian learning, but the new dynasty 
deserted it for a new city which Hushang the 
son of Dilawar built at Mandu on a small plateau 
among the Vindhya slopes. The situation of Malwa, 



MALWA 173 

hedged in by warring states, Delhi and Jaunpur on 
the north and the rising power of Gujarat on the 



TOWER OF VICTORY AT CHITOR. 



west, involved the new state in frequent wars, and 
its kings in turn attacked one or other of their 
neighbours. The murder of Dilawar's grandson 



1/4 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Mohammad in 1435 by his vezir, Mahmud the Khalji, 
set the assassin on the throne, and Mahmud raised 
the kingdom of Malwa to its greatest strength. 
Though his siege of Delhi was unsuccessful, his 
campaigns against Jaunpur, the Rajputs, and the 
Deccan resulted in the acquisition of Kalpi on the 
Jumna, Ajmir and Rantambhor in Rajputana, and 
Elichpur south of the Satpura range. His per- 
petual conflicts with the rana of Chitor, however, 
ended in a crushing defeat in 1440, the memory 
of which is still revived by the lofty Pillar of Vic- 
tory which Rana Kumbho set up at his capital. 
After this, Rajput influence gradually became su- 
preme in Malwa ; Rana Sanga defeated the sec- 
ond Mahmud as effectually as Rana Kumbha had 
humbled the first ; and Medini Rao, the lord of 
Chanderi, managed the kingdom as chief minister 
of the nominal sovereign, until the invasion of India 
by Babar, involving the defeat of the Rajputs and 
the death of Medini Rao, gave Bahadur Shah of 
Gujarat the opportunity to take possession of Malwa 
in 1531. 

Gujarat. An inaccessible position, beyond the 
great desert and the hills connecting the Vindhyas 
with the Aravali range, long preserved Gujarat from 
the Mohammedan yoke. Only by sea was it easily 
approached, and to the sea it owed its peculiar ad- 
vantages, its favouring climate and fertile soil, and 
the wealth which poured in from the great commer- 
cial emporia of Cambay, Diu, and Surat. The 
greater part of the Indian trade with Persia, Arabia, 



GUJARAT 175 

and the Red Sea passed through its harbours, be- 
sides a busy coasting trade. * The benefit of this 
trade overflowed upon tlie country, which became a 
garden, and enriched the treasury of the prince. 
The noble mosques, colleges, palaces, and tombs, the 





GOLD COIN OF GHIYAS SHAH OF MALWA A. H. 880 (A. D. I475-6). 

remains of which still adorn Ahmadabad and its 
other cities to this day, while they excite the ad- 
miration of the traveller, prove both the wealth and 
the taste of the founders.'' Not till the reign of 
Ala-ad-din at the close of the 13th century did it 
become a Muslim province, and a century later it 
became independent again under a dynasty of Mus- 
lim kings. Their beginning resembled the birth of 
the Malwa state. Firoz Shah in 1391 granted the 
fief of Gujarat to Zafar Khan, the son of a converted 
Rajput, and five years later the fiefholder assumed 
the royal canopy. He soon enlarged his dominions, 
at first but a strip between hills and sea, by the 
annexation of Idar to the north and Diu in Kathia- 
war, plundered Jhalor, and even took possession of 
Malwa for a short space in 1407, setting his brother 
on the throne in the place of Hushang the son 
of Dilawar. His successor Ahmad I founded the 

^ Erskine, History of India, i, 21. 



1/6 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

fortress of Ahmadnagar, and also Ahmadabad, which 
has ever since been the chief city of Gujarat, and 
recovered Bombay and Salsette from the Deccan 
kings. Mahmud I not only carried on the tra- 
ditional wars of his dynasty with Malwa on the east 
and Khandesh on the south, but kept a large fleet 
to subdue the pirates of the islands. 

Nor were Asiatic pirates the only disturbers of 
his coast. The first of the three great waves of 
European invasion was already beating on the 
shores of Gujarat. Vasco da Gama had reached 
the Malabar ports in 1498, and the effects of the 
new influence were soon felt further north. The 
Portuguese had no more intention at first of found- 
ing an eastern empire than the later Dutch and 
English companies. The hostility of the Muslim 
traders compelled them to protect their agents, and 
a commercial policy was necessarily supported by 
military power. The position of invaders was forced 
upon the Portuguese, as it was later on upon the 
English. The collision was brought about by the 
spirited action of the last Mamluk sultan of Egypt. 
Kansuh el-Ghuri, realizing the imminent jeopardy 
of the great Indian trade which supplied so much of 
the wealth of Egypt, resolved to drive the Portu- 
guese from the Arabian Sea. His appeal and threats 
to the pope had no effect, and there remained the 
resort to arms. The Mamluks had long maintained 
a fleet in the Red Sea, and Admiral Husain was 
dispatched in 1508 to Gujarat with a well-equipped 
war squadron manned with sailors who had often 
fought with Christian fleets in the Mediterranean. 



PORTUGUESE IN GUJARAT ly/ 

He was joined by the fleet of Gujarat, commanded 
by the governor of Diu, in spite of the efforts of the 
Portuguese captain, Louren^o de Almeida, to pre- 
vent their union ; and the combined fleet was in 
every respect superior to the flotilla of Christian 
merchantmen which boldly sailed out of the port of 
Chaul to the attack. The Portuguese were defeated 
in a running fight which lasted two days, and the 
young captain, son of the famous viceroy, was 
killed. ' His ship was surrounded on every side ; 
his leg was broken by a cannon-ball at the com- 
mencement of the action ; nevertheless he had him- 
self placed upon a chair at the foot of the mainmast, 
and gave his orders as coolly as ever. Shortly after- 
Avards a second cannon-ball struck him in the breast, 
and the young hero, who was not yet twenty-one, 
expired, in the words of Camoens, without knowing 
what the word surrender meant.' He was avenged 
a few months later when on Feb. 2, 1509, his 
father, the viceroy Francisco de Almeida, utterly 
defeated the combined fleet of Egypt and Gujarat 
off Diu. In the following year the king of Gujarat 
offered Albuquerque, the conqueror of Goa, the 
port of Diu, and a Portuguese factory was there 
established in 15 13, though the celebrated fortress 
of the Christian invaders was not built till 1535/ 

Though unable to withstand the Portuguese — or 
perhaps not unwilling to see his powerful deputy 
at Diu humiliated — Bahadur was one of the most 
brilliant figures among the warrior kings of Gujarat. 

' See Lane-Poole, Histoj-y of Egypt in the Middle Ages, 352 ; 
Morse Stephens, Albuquerque, 36-38. 



178 MEDIyEVAL INDIA 

The Rajputs of the hills and the kings of the 
Deccan owned his superiority, and in 1531 he an- 
nexed Malwa. A Rajput rising and the advance of 
the Moghuls under Humayun the son of Babar for a 
time destroyed his authority, as will presently be 
seen, but he recovered it bravely, only to fall at last. 





GOLD COIN OF MAHMUD SHAH OF GUJARAT, A. H. 946 (A. D. I539-40). 

drowned in a scuffle with the Portuguese whom he 
had admitted to his coast. The final absorption of 
Gujarat in the Moghul empire in 1572 belongs to a 
later chapter. 

Deccan. Nothing has been said of the affairs of 
the Deccan since the reign of Mohammad Taghlak, 
after whose time no king of Delhi had ever held 
authority south of the Vindhyas. The rebellions 
which embittered the last years of that too ingenious 
sovereign had nowhere been more successful than in 
his favourite province of the south. The revolt of 
the 'new amirs' in Sind, which hastened his end, 
was but a part of a larger movement, and its centre 
was in the Deccan. Here a brave and capable 
Afghan, Hasan Gangu, who had risen from menial 
service at Delhi to high command in the southern 
armies, placed himself at the head of the disaffected, 
and defeated the royal troops near Bidar. No at- 



THE DECCAN 1 79 

tempt was made to suppress the revolt, for the king 
was too deeply engaged in endeavouring to restore 
order nearer home ; and Hasan Gangu became king 
of the Deccan (1347). His dominions included 
almost all that the campaigns of Ala-ad-din and 
Mohammad Taghlak had won from the Hindu rajas 
of the great southern plateau. The valley of the 
Tapti was independent under the separate dynasty 
of the kings of Khandesh, an offshoot of Gujarat, 
who maintained their distinct though limited power 
at their new capital Burhanpur from 1370 to the con- 
quest of Akbar in 1599. -^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ Dec- 
can, from Elichpur in Berar down to the Krishna 
and Tungabhadra rivers, and across from the Ara- 
bian Sea to Mahur, Ramgir, and Indore on the 
frontier of Warangal, was under the rule of the new 
dynasty of the Bahmanids, founded by Hasan Gangu. 
On the east the Hindu kingdom of Warangal barred 
his access to the Bay of Bengal ; and on the south, 
beyond the Krishna, stretched the great empire of 
Vijayanagar, the last bulwark of Hindu power in 
the Deccan, which, gathering together the frag- 
ments scattered by the tumultuous assaults of Mo- 
hammad Taghlak, formed a mighty state, able to 
parry every onslaught of the Muslims for two centu- 
ries to come. 

Hasan Gangu Zafar Khan fixed his capital at Kul- 
barga, near the Bhima, and gave it the name of ' the 
fairest city,' Ahsanabad ; and here his descendants 
ruled till 1526 over most of what is now called the 
Bombay Presidency and the Nizam's Territory. On 
the north, beyond an occasional dispute with Gujarat, 



l8o MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

there was little trouble ; but the kingdom of War- 
angal or Telingana, supported by the raja of Orisa, 
was a standing menace to the Muslim power, 
though Mohammad I reduced it to tributary submis- 
sion varied by intermittent hostilities. In 1422 
Ahmad Shah I invaded Warangal, captured its prince, 
and shot him from a catapult on the walls into a 
flaming wood-pile which he had prepared below. 
The heavy loss he suffered on his march back did 
not discourage him, and three years later he extin- 
guished the native dynasty and annexed their terri- 
tory ; but the fact that the Hindus of Warangal 
ventured to retaliate in 1461, and even marched as 
far as Bidar, shows that the annexation soon became 
little more than nominal. 

The power of the Bahmanid dynasty must have 
been overwhelming to have reduced the empire of 
the Carnatic to even occasional subjection. The raja 
of Vijayanagar ruled not only what was afterwards 
known as the kingdom of Mysore but the whole 
country between the Krishna (or rather its tributary, 
the Tungabhadri) and the Kaveri, stretching from 
coast to coast, from Mangalore on the west to Con- 
jeveram on the east, and from Karnal on the north 
to Trichinopoli on the south. Yet this great Hindu 
empire was repeatedly forced to pay tribute to the 
Bahmanids, and never succeeded in winning a vic- 
tory over them. Vijayanagar coveted the triangle 
of land between the upper course of the Krishna and 
the Tungabhadri river, known as the Raichur Doab, 
with its fortresses of Mudkal and Raichur, and the 
campaigns of the 14th and 15th centuries centred in 



VIJAYANAGAR l8l 

this territory : but the Bahmanids steadily kept their 
grip on it, and never permanently lost a fortress or a 
mile of ground. In the earliest campaign the raja 
led 30,000 horse, 100,000 foot, and 3,000 elephants, to 
the assault of Mudkal in the debatable land, and for 
the moment triumphed in the capture of the for- 
tress and the massacre of the Muslims (1366). But 
Mohammad I, the son of Hasan Gangu, was soon on 
his track. Standing on the banks of the Krishna he 
vowed that he would neither eat nor sleep till he 
had crossed in face of the enemy and avenged his 
slaughtered saints. He crossed, and the raja fled ; 
abandoning his camp and 70,000 men, women, and 
children, on whom the sultan wreaked his vengeance 
without mercy. The Bahmanid kings had no bowels 
of compassion, and it is related of one of them that 
whenever the number of Hindus massacred at one 
time reached 20,000 it was his habit to indulge in a 
feast. 

Mohammad continued his march to Adoni and 
even to the capital Vijayanagar itself, which he 
vainly besieged for a month. This campaign, in 
which he repeatedly vanquished the enemy, and laid 
the Carnatic waste, is said to have cost the lives of 
half a million Hindus, and it was only after ambassa- 
dors had urgently pleaded with him that the sultan 
consented to forego his custom of indiscriminate 
slaughter and pledged his successors, somewhat in- 
effectually, to the like clemency. Another campaign 
waged by his son Mujahid in 1378 was undertaken 
for the possession of the strong fortress of Banka- 
pur, south of Dharwar, and after several victories 



1 82 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

and hunting the raja from place to place, and after 
restoring the mosque on the sea-coast which Kafur 
had founded nearly seventy years before, Mujahid 
led his army back to the Krishna with over 6o,ooo 
prisoners, chiefly women. He was murdered on his 
way home by his uncle Dawud, but the change of 
rulers made no difference in the superiority of the 
Muslim, kingdom. Vijayanagar paid an annual 
tribute, or if it withheld it there was war and 
humiliation. 

The most signal discomfitures of the Hindus oc- 
curred in the reign of Firoz the son of Dawud. On 





GOLD COIN OF FIROZ, STRUCK AT AHSANABAD, A.H. 807 (A.D. I404-5). 

the first occasion (1398) Vijayanagar was the aggres- 
sor, the object being as usual the regaining of Mud- 
kal and Raichur. Firishta tells a quaint story of 
how a grave kazi and his friends insinuated them- 
selves into the not very fastidious favour of the 
nautch girls of the enemy's camp, and disguised as 
dancing women contrived to get themselves smug- 
gled into the presence of the raja's son, whom they 
diverted with a sword-dance which ended in the 
plunging of their daggers into the prince's breast. 
This catastrophe, followed up by a night attack, 
caused the flight of the raja, and Vijayanagar had to 



BAHMANID CONQUESTS 1 83 

pay ;^ 400,000 to get the enemy over the border. In 
1406, as the annual tribute had not been rendered, 
Firoz again invaded the Carnatic. The war was 
provoked by the raja, who, hearing of a lovely but 
coy maiden in Mudkal, marched upon the fortress to 
secure her, but instead of succeeding in his amorous 
quest not only found the maiden fled but learnt that 
the army of Kulbarga was on his track. Firoz took 
Bankapur, which his predecessor had vainly coveted, 
and did not retire till the enemy had again suffered 
the loss of 60,000 prisoners. Not only did the raja 
surrender the fortress ; he even yielded a princess to 
the sultan's harim — an humiliating degradation for 
a Hindu sovereign — together with immense treas- 
ure, and was actually obliged to admit his foe as a 
guest within the walls of the capital. An interest- 
ing feature of the Bahmanid wars was the adoption 
of the ' Rumi,' i. e. Ottoman, custom of forming a 
laager of linked wagons to protect the camp. As we 
shall see, Babar employed this mode of defence with 
the addition of chained gun-carriages. Other cam- 
paigns followed in 1419, 1423, 1435, and 1443, ac- 
companied by the usual Bahmanid victories and 
massacres, the destruction of temples and Brahman 
colleges, and general devastation, and ending in the 
invariable submission and tribute of the Hindu state. ^ 
The unsuccessful siege (1459) of Devarakanda in 

^ The history of Vijayanagar may be read in the recent valuable 
work of Mr. Robert Sewell, A Forgotten E^npire^ in which the 
annals of Firishta are supplemented by the records of oriental and 
Portuguese travellers, and the campaigns are examined with much 
topographic learning. 



1 84 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

the Telugu country by the Bahmanid Humayun — 
an oriental Nero — shows that the power of the dy- 
nasty was hmited by Hindu chiefs to the east; but 
the conquests of Mohammad II between 1476 and 
148 1, when Rajamandari, Kandapah, and Kandavid 
were wrested from the raja of Orisa, the sultan's 
arms triumphed over Masulipatan, and Belgaon 
was added on the west, raised the kingdom of Kul- 
barga to its greatest glory and extent. The pride was 
very shortly followed by the fall, but the blow did 
not come from rival empires. The kingdom broke 
up from internal causes. The succession of two 
young sons of Humayun under a regency weakened 
the royal authority, and though the wise administra- 
tion of a great minister, Mahmud Gawan, and a 
decade of vigorous campaigns of aggression secured 
a vast extension of territory and an unprecedented 
degree of prosperity, the unjust execution of the 
minister and the subsequent demoralization of king 
and state led to the disruption of an empire that 
had outgrown its cohesion. A recent division into 
large provincial governments hastened the dissolu- 
tion. During the reign of Mohammad's youthful 
son, Mahmud Shah II, the various provinces shook 
off the parent's yoke. Imad-al-mulk was crowned 
king in Berar (1484) ; Yusuf Adil Shah proclaimed 
the independence of the newly created government 
of Bijapur in 1489; Nizam-al-mulk prepared the 
way for the separation of Junair. Thus the most 
important provinces in the north, west, and south- 
west were lost ; and early in the 1 6th century 
(15 1 2) Telingana, never very firmly held, followed 



BAHMANID CONQUESTS 



■85 



the rest and declared its independence. Mahmud 
Shah, once a captive, next a refugee, died at Bidar, 
which had for some time superseded Kulbarga as 
the dynastic capital, in 1518, and with him the 
power of the Bahmanids came to an end, though 
three sons and a grandson mounted a nominal throne 
during the next eight years. 

Their dominions were divided among the Adil 
Shahs of Bijapur (1489-1686), the Kutb Shahs of 
Golkonda (15 12-1687), the Barid Shahs of Bidar 
(1492-C. 1609), the Nizam Shahs of Ahmadnagar 
(1490-1595), and the Imad Shahs of Berar (1484- 
1572). Of these dynasties we shall hear again when 
we come to the Deccan wars of Aurangzib. It is 
now time to turn to a new invasion of India from 
the north-west, which gradually converted a country 
divided among numerous petty dynasties into a 
united and powerful empire, and founded the long 
line of the great Moghuls which endured to the days 
of the Mutiny. 




BOOK III 
THE MOGHUL EMPIRE 

1 526-1764 



187 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE COMING OF THE MOGHULS 



THE EMPEROR BABAR 



1451-153O 



THE Muslims of India had grown effete. The 
old hardy vigour which had enabled the hills- 
men to trample upon the rich and ancient civilization 
of the Hindus was extinct. A race of conquerors 
had become a squabbling crowd, jostling each other 
for the luxuries of thrones, but wanting the power 
to hold a sceptre. The respect which belonged to a 
caste of foreigners, who kept themselves apart and 
observed strict rules of religious and social law, had 
been degraded when those laws were lightly es- 
teemed, when the harims of the Muslims were filled 
with native women, when Hindus w^ho nominally 
professed Islam were promoted to high office, — when 
the Mohammedan domination, in short, had become 
the rule of the half-caste. The empire of Delhi had 
disappeared. The greater provinces had their separ- 
ate kings, the smaller districts and even single cities 
and forts belonged to chiefs or clans who owned no 

189 



190 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

higher lord. The king's writ was no more supreme ; 
it was the day of the little princes, the Muluk-at- 
tawaif or Faction-Kings. 

Something, it is true, had been done to restore the 
vanished power of Delhi during the century that 
followed the collapse of the Taghlak dynasty after 
the invasion of Timur. The Sayyids utterly failed, 
but their successors the Lodi Afghans showed at 
first both energy and wisdom. Buhlol, who sup- 
planted the last of the feeble Sayyids in 145 1, was a 
good soldier and a simple man, who was content to 
let the world know that he was king without parad- 
ing the pomp of monarchy. He took the minor 
principalities round Delhi in hand, and after a stub- 
born war of over a quarter of a century succeeded 
(as we have seen) in recovering Jaunpur and its 
territories and restoring the old frontier of his king- 
dom as far as Bihar. His son Sikandar, succeeding 
him in 1488, completed his task by subduing Bihar, 
where Husain the last king of Jaunpur had taken 
refuge, and by a treaty of alliance with the king 
of Bengal it was arranged that the dominion of 
Delhi should march with that of Bengal as in former 
times. The Rajputs of Dholpur, Chanderi, and Gwal- 
iar submitted ; and Sikandar's kingdom, including the 
Panjab, the Doab, Jaunpur, Oudh, Bihar, Tirhut, and 
the country between the Sutlej and Bandelkhand, 
began to recall the earlier supremacy of Delhi. 

The resemblance was only on the surface, how- 
ever, and, as Erskine has pointed out in his judicious 
history,^ 'these extensive possessions, though under 

■ W. Erskine, History of India tmder Baher and Htimayun, i, 406, 



THE LODI KINGS 



191 



one king, had no very strong principle of cohesion. 
The monarchy was a congeries of nearly independent 
principalities, jagirs, and provinces, each ruled by an 
hereditary chief, or by a zemindar or delegate from 
Delhi ; and the inhabitants looked more to their 
immediate governors, who had absolute power in 
the province and in whose hands consequently lay 
their happiness or misery, than to a distant and 
little-known sovereign. It was the individual, not 
the law, that reigned. The Lodi princes, not merely 
to strengthen their own power, but from necessity, 
had in general committed the government of the 
provinces and the chief offices of trust to their own 
countrymen, the Afghans ; so that men of the Lodi, 
Fermuli, and Lohani tribes held all the principal 
jagirs; which from the habitual modes of thinking 
of their race they considered as their own of right 
and purchased by their swords rather than as due 
to any bounty or liberality on the part of the 
sovereign.' 

A throne depending on the allegiance of 'an aris- 
tocracy of rapacious and turbufent chiefs ' demands 
politic concessions on the part of the monarch. 
Afghans above most men resent an undue assump- 
tion of superiority and tolerate with difficulty the 
tedious etiquette and obsequious ceremony of a 
formal court. Their king must be their chief, a 
bon camarade and admitted leader in arms, but 
he [must not give himself airs or show a want of 
respect for the free and outspoken clansmen upon 
whose swords his dominion rests. Unfortunately the 
new sultan of Delhi, Ibrahim son of Sikandar, who 



192 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

succeeded his father in 15 18, was a man of forms and 
a stickler for royal prerogative. He made the great 
Afghan chiefs stands motionless in his presence with 
folded hands and vexed them with petty rules of 
etiquette. Dreading their power — already displayed 
in the support given by an influential faction to his 
brother Jalal, who had been nominated to the gov- 
ernment' of Jaunpur and made a rash and unsuc- 
cessful effort to share a divided crown — instead of 
attempting to disarm them by favour and concession, 
he sought to reduce them to a sense of their in- 
feriority by treating his lower subjects with the 
same degree of consideration that he showed to the 
Afghan nobles. When discontent arose, and revolt 
after revolt sprang up, he endeavoured to quench 
the rising conflagration by the blood of some of the 
leading amirs. 

The result was still wider disaffection. The eastern 
districts about Oudh, Jaunpur, and Bihar, where 
Afghan influence was especially strong, rose in arms 
and chose Darya Khan, of the Lohani tribe, as their 
chief. In the Panjab, Daulat Khan, a son of one of 
the half dozen Afghan nobles who had set the Lodi 
dynasty on the throne of Delhi seventy years be- 
fore, rebelled in alarm at the execution of some of 
the leading chiefs. The rule of sultan Ibrahim had 
become intolerable even to his own nation, and his 
uncle Ala-ad-din fled to Kabul to solicit the aid of 
its king, the descendant of Timur, in wresting the 
crown of Delhi from its ill-advised possessor. 

The king of Kabul was not the man to shrink 
from an adventure of any kind ; the wilder and the 



BABAR'S MEMOIRS 1 93 

more daring it seemed, the better he liked it. Babar 
is perhaps the most captivating personaHty in 
oriental history, and the fact that he is able to 
impart this charm to his own Memoirs is not the 
least of his titles to fame. He is the link between 
Central Asia and India, between predatory hordes 
and imperial government, between Timur and Akbar. 
The blood of the two great scourges of Asia, Mongol 
and Turk, Chingiz and Timur, mixed in his veins, 
and to the daring and restlessness of the nomad 
Tatar he joined the culture and urbanity of the 
Persian. He brought the energy of the Mongol, the 
courage and capacity of the Turk, to the subjection 
of the listless Hindu ; and, himself a soldier of 
fortune and no architect of empire, he yet laid the 
first stone of the splendid fabric which his grandson 
Akbar completed. 

*■ His connexion with India began only in the last 
twelve years of his life. His youth was spent in 
ineffectual struggles to preserve his sovereignty in 
his native land. His early manhood, passed in his 
new kingdom of Kabul, was full of an unsatisfied 
yearning for the recovery of his mother country. 
It was not till the age of thirty-six that he abandoned 
his hope of a restored empire on the Oxus and 
laxartes, and turned his eyes resolutely towards the 
cities and spoils of Hindustan. Five times he in- 
vaded the northern plains, and the fifth invasion 
was a conquest. Five years he dwelt in the India 
he had now made his own, and in his forty-eighth 
year he died. 

* His permanent place in history rests upon his 
13 



194 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

Indian conquests, which opened the way for an im- 
perial line ; but his place in biography and in litera- 
ture is determined rather by his daring adventures 
and persevering efforts in his earlier days, and by 
the dehghtful Memoirs in which he related them. 
Soldier of fortune as he was, Babar was not the less 
a man of fine literary taste and fastidious critical 
perception. In Persian, the language of culture, the 
Latin of Central Asia, as it is of India, he was an 
accomplished poet, and in his native Turki he was 
master of a pure and unaffected style alike in prose 
and verse. The Turkish princes of his time prided 
themselves upon their literary polish, and to turn an 
elegant ghazal, or even to write a beautiful manu- 
script, was their peculiar ambition, no less worthy or 
stimulating than to be master of sword or mace. 
Wit and learning, the art of improvising a quatrain 
on the spot, quoting the Persian classics, writing a 
good hand, or singing a good song, were highly 
appreciated in Babar's world, as much perhaps as 
valour, and infinitely more than virtue. Babar him- 
self will break off in the middle of a tragic story to 
quote a verse, and he found leisure in the thick of 
his difficulties and dangers to compose an ode on 
his misfortunes. His battles as well as his orgies 
were humanized by a breath of poetry. 

* Hence his Memoirs are no rough soldier's chron- 
icle of marches and countermarches, " saps, mines, 
blinds, gabions, palisadoes, ravelins, half-moons, and 
such trumpery " ; they contain the personal impres- 
sions and acute reflections of a cultivated man of the 
world, well-read in Eastern literature, a close and 




r* 



'/■ 



/ 





o 



i-Mi 






THE EMPEROR BABAR. 



195 



196 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

curious observer, quick in perception, a discerning 
judge of persons, and a devoted lover of nature, — 
one, moreover, who was well able to express his 
thoughts and observations in clear and vigorous lan- 
guage. The man's own character is so fresh and 
buoyant, so free from convention and cant, so rich 
in hope, courage, resolve, and at the same time so 
warm and friendly, so very human, that it conquers 
one's admiring sympathy. The utter frankness and 
self-revelation, the unconscious portraiture of all his 
virtues and follies, his obvious truthfulness and fine 
sense of honour give the Memoirs of this prince of 
autobiographers an authority which is equal to their 
charm. 

* The line of emperors who proceeded from Babar's 
loins is no more. The very name of Mongol has lost 
its influence on the banks of laxartes ; the Turk is 
the servant of the Russian he once despised. The 
last Indian sovereign of Timur's race ended his in- 
glorious career an exile at Rangoon almost within 
our own memory ; a few years later the degenerate 
descendants of Chingiz Kaan submitted to the ofifi- 
cers of the Tsar. The power and pomp of Babar's 
dynasty are gone ; the record of his life — the littera 
scripta that mocks at time — remains unaltered and 
imperishable.' ^ 

Babar's earlier career must be read elsewhere : it 
began far away from India, in the country beyond 
the Oxus where the descendants of Timur struggled 
for the remaining fragment of the vast empire which 

^ See Lane-Poole, Babar (Clarendon Press, 1900), from which 
much of the present chapter is derived. 



BABAR'S YOUTH 1 97 

had broken up as soon as his iron hand was stiffened in 
death. Timur's conquests were too recent, too hasty, 
to be organized into settled empire. They were hke 
a vast conflagration driven before the wind, which 
destroys the herbage for a while, but when the flame 
has passed the earth grows green again. Even in 
the original home, the Oxus land, a single century 
saw the downfall of Timur's dynasty : the fire had 
only left some embers, which smouldered awhile, 
but, lacking the kindling and stirring of the great in- 
cendiary, finally died out. After that, the sole relic 
of Timur's vast dominions was the little kingdom 
which an exiled prince of his own brave blood set up 
among the crags and passes of the Afghan hills — 
whence came the great Moghuls ^ and the glories 
of Delhi and Agra. 

It was among these embers of the great fire that 
Babar, in 1494, at the age of eleven, found himself 
suddenly king of the province of Farghana beside 
the laxartes, by right of inheritance in the sixth 
generation from Timur. No boy had ever to face 

' ' Moghul' — more accurately Mughal — is the Arabic spelling of 
Mongol, and is specially applied to the emperors of India descended 
from Babar and sometimes called in Europe the Babarids. They 
were however of mixed race ; Babar himself was a Turk on his 
father's side, though a Mongol on his mother's, and he abhorred the 
very name of Moghul. His descendants introduced a strong Rajput 
strain by their marriages with Hindu princesses. The term Moghul 
is also applied to the followers of the Moghul emperors, and came to 
mean any fair man from Central Asia or Afghanistan, as distin- 
guished from the darker native Indians, The various foreign in- 
vaders, or governing Muslim class, Turks, Afghans, Pathans, and 
Moghuls eventually became so mixed that all were indifferently termed 
Moghuls. 



198 MEDIyEVAL INDIA 

such perilous paths as those which led the young 
king of Farghana to the heights of his soaring ambi- 
tion. He would reign where Timur reigned at Sa- 
markand, and there hold sway over the empire of his 
ancestor : nothing less would content him. But the 
road to empire lay among jealous kinsmen, treacher- 
ous chiefs, mutinous retainers, and the ever-growing 
power of the hostile Uzbeg tribes. Twice did Babar 
seat himself upon Timur's throne, and twice was he 
expelled to wander a homeless exile among the hills, 
dwelling in the shepherds' huts, or suffering the 
ungracious protection of his mother's Mongol rela- 
tions in the northern steppes. Ten years of cease- 
less effort, brief triumph, sore defeat, and grinding 
misery, all borne with that courage and sanguine 
hope that were among his finest qualities, ended in 
his retreat to Kabul, where he took the little throne 
which had been held by Timur's lineage ever since 
his raid into India. Here Babar made himself a 
kingdom, small compared with the dominion of the 
present amir of Afghanistan, but not easy to hold, with 
its turbulent and jealous tribes and rocky barriers. 

But a mountain chiefship was no fit ambition for 
a king who had twice ruled Samarkand. Babar's 
dreams still reverted to the land of his forefathers, 
and only the disastrous failure of his third attempt to 
recover Timur's capital in 15 12 convinced him that 
the true road to empire led down the passes into the 
rich plains of Hindustan. His thoughts had often 
turned towards the east whilst he was bringing into 
order the restless tribes of his mountain realm, and 
several times his expeditions led him very near the 



BABAR AT LAHORE 



199 



Indian frontier ; but he had been twenty years at 
Kabul before he carried his thoughts into decisive 
action and began his campaign of conquest. An at- 
tack in 1 5 19 on Bajaur, in the Indian borderland 
near Chitral, with which recent history has made us 
familiar, was merely a preliminary step, though fol- 
lowed by the occupation of Bhira on the Jehlam. Ba- 
bar had thus set his foot upon the Panjab, and claimed 
it in right of his ancestor Timur's conquest a hund- 
red and twenty years before ; but it was no more 
than a claim, for the moment he turned back to 
Kabul the Indians recovered the territory, and Ba- 
bar's occupation, with a couple of thousand horse, 
was but a raid. It was not till 1524 that he entered 
resolutely upon the campaigns which ended in the 
conquest of Hindustan. 

The appeal of Alam Khan Ala-ad-din, the uncle of 
sultan Ibrahim, already noticed, was but the spark 
that kindled a long-prepared train. The claimant to 
the throne of Delhi appeared at Kabul to urge a 
petition that was already granted in Babar's own 
mind. No more propitious moment could be de- 
sired. India was seething with faction and discon- 
tent. Babar was strong and prepared, and at his 
side was a member of the Lodi family to sanction 
his plans and invite adhesion. The emperor was 
soon on the march, and following his previous route 
to Bhira was quickly in the neighbourhood of Lahore. 
The insurgent governor, Daulat Khan, had already 
been driven out by the Delhi army, but he was 
amply avenged by the Kabul troops, who routed 
the enemy with heavy slaughter, and chased them 



200 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

through the streets of Lahore, plundering and burn- 
ing the bazar. Babar rested only four days in the 
capital of the Panjab, and then pressed on at his best 
speed to Dipalpur, where he stormed and sacked the 
town, and massacred the garrison. He appointed 
some of his most trusty officers to defend the pro- 
vince, and having established ' sultan ' Ala-ad-din at 
Dipalpur (with a veteran Mongol to watch him), the 
emperor returned to Kabul to beat up reinforcements. 

Babar set out on his final invasion of India in No- 
vember, 1525. His eldest son, Humayun, brought 
a contingent from Badakhshan, and Khwaja Kalan, 
trustiest of generals, led the troops of Ghazni. 
Daulat Khan, after deceiving the invaders with pre- 
tended support, was now in the field against them 
at the head of 40,000 men, and the old Afghan had 
girded on two swords in token of his resolve to win 
or die. Nevertheless this valiant army broke and 
vanished at Babar's approach with a far less numer- 
ous force, and the emperor continued his advance. 

* The decisive battle was fought on April 21, 
1526, on the plain of Panipat — the historic site 
where the throne of India has been thrice won. 
For several days Babar was busy with his prepara- 
tions. He collected seven hundred gun-carts, and 
formed a laager by linking them together with 
twisted bull-hides, to break a cavalry charge, and by 
arranging hurdles or shields between each pair to 
protect the matchlock men.^ Then two marches 
more brought the army to Panipat. Here he had 

' Baggage-wagons were probably used to supplement gun-carriages 
in forming a breastwork. Babar frequently mentions that the ar- 



BATTLE OF PANIPAT 20I 

the town on his right, his left was defended by 
ditches and abatis of trees, while he placed his 
cannon and matchlocks in the centre. He was care- 
ful to leave gaps in his line a bowshot apart, through 
which 100 or 150 men could charge abreast. 

' On the 20th of April a night surprise was at- 
tempted upon the Afghans' position, and though it 
failed, owing to the confusion of the troops in the 
darkness, it had the effect of drawing the enemy out 
of his camp. Sultan Ibrahim, elated by the ease 
with which this attack had been driven back, brought 
his army out at dawn on the 21st in battle array. 
It was said to muster 100,000 men and 100 elephants. 
The moment Babar detected the movement of the 
enemy, his men were ordered to put on their helmets 
and mail, and take up their stations. His army was 
drawn up behind his laager in the usual order, right 
and left centre, right and left wing, advance guard, 
and reserve; but in addition he had placed flanking 
parties of Mongols on the extreme right and left, 
with orders to execute their famous national ma- 
noeuvre, the tulughma — a rapid wheel charging the 
enemy's rear — of which Babar well knew the tre- 
mendous effect. 

rangement of his chained carriages was copied from the ' Rumi,' i. e. 
Osmanli, order of battle. At the battle of Khaldiran in 15 14, 
between the Osmanlis and the Persians, the former not only chained 
their guns together, but 'set up their usual breastwork of bag- 
gage-wagons and camels in front of the Janizaries,' thus using a 
wagon laager in the centre as well as chained guns at the extremities 
of their line of battle. Mr. Oman tells me that the use of war-carts, 
formed and manoeuvred in hollow squares, was invented by the Hus- 
sites in the Bohemian wars to resist the German cavalry. 



202 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

'The army of Delhi came straight on, at a quick 
march, without a halt from the start. They seemed 
to be aiming at Babar's right, and he sent up the 
reserve to its support. As the enemy came up to 
the ditches, abatis, and hurdles, they hesitated, and 
the pressure of the troops behind threw them into 
some confusion. Taking advantage of this Babar 
sent out his Mongol flankers through the gaps in 
the laager, and they galloped round the enemy and 
poured their arrows into the rear. Part of the em- 
peror's left wing, advancing incautiously, got into 
difificulties ; but the general's eye was on them, and 
they were promptly supported from the centre. 
Meanwhile the right was also hard pressed and 
Babar sent forward his right centre to their assist- 
ance. The master-gunner, Ustad Ali, made pretty 
practice with his firengi pieces, in front of the line, 
and was admirably seconded by Mustafa, the can- 
noneer on the left centre. The enemy was now 
engaged on all sides, front, flanks, and rear ; and 
their charges, which seemed ineffective to men 
who had stood up to the Mongols' swoop, were 
easily repulsed and driven back upon their cen- 
tre, which Avas already too crowded to be able 
to use its strength. In this jammed confusion 
they lay at the mercy of the hardy Turks and 
Mongols, who fell upon the strangled ranks with 
deadly effect. 

' By noon the great army of the king of Delhi was 
broken and flying for dear life. Sultan Ibrahim 
himself lay stark on the field, amidst some fifteen 
thousand of his dead. They brought his head to 



BATTLE OF PANIPAT 203 

Babar, and prisoners, elephants, and spoil of all sorts 
began to come in from the pursuers. '* The sun had 
mounted spear-high when the onset began, and the 
battle lasted till mid-day, when the enemy were 
completely broken and routed, and my people vic- 
torious and triumphant. By the grace and mercy 
of Almighty God this difficult affair was made 
easy to me, and that mighty army, in the space 
of half a day, was laid in the dust." Two de- 
tachments were at once dispatched to occupy 
Delhi and Agra, and on Friday, April 27, the pub- 
lic prayer was said in the mosque of the capital in 
the name of the new Emperor, the first of the 
" Great Moguls." ' 

The spoil of the royal treasuries at Delhi and 
Agra was immense and the first business was to 
divide the booty among the expectant troops. To 
his eldest son Humayun, who had played his part 
like a man in the great battle, he gave seventy lacs (of 
dams, i. e. about ;^20,ooo) and a treasure which no 
one had counted. His chief Begs were rewarded 
with six to ten lacs apiece (;^ 1,700 to ^2,800). 
Every man who had fought received his share, and 
even the traders and camp-followers were remem- 
bered in the general bounty. Every man and 
woman, slave and free, young and old, in Kabul, 
was sent a silver coin in celebration of the victory. 
When Humayun brought his father the glorious 
diamond, one of the famous historical jewels, valued 
at * half the daily expenses of the world,' which the 
family of the late Raja Vikramajit had given him 
in gratitude for his chivalrous protection, Babar 



204 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

gave it back to the young prince/ He had no love 
for weahh or precious stones, except to give away^ 
and his prodigal generosity in distributing the im- 
mense spoil of the Delhi kings gained him the 
nickname of ' the Kalandari ' — the begging-friar. 
He was content with fame. 

Babar was now king of Delhi, but not yet king of 
Hindustan, much less of India. Even of the domin- 
ions of Delhi, which then stretched from the Indus 
to Bihar, and from Gwaliar to near the Him.alayas, 
he was only nominally master. The Lodi dynasty, 
indeed, was dethroned, and its king slain, but that 
king left a brother to claim the crown, and the land 
remained unsubdued east and south of Agra. The 
people were hostile to the strangers of uncouth 
tongue, and each town and petty ruler prepared for 
obstinate resistance. The strongholds of the Doab 
and Rajputana were all fortifying against attack, 
unanimous in rejecting the newcomers. In spite of 
the surfeit of treasure, Babar's troops were like to 
starve. ' When I came to Agra,' he says, ' it was 
the hot season. All the inhabitants fled from terror, 
so that we could find neither grain for ourselves nor 
fodder for our beasts. The villages, out of mere 
hatred and spite to us, had taken to anarchy, thiev- 
ing, and marauding. The roads became impassable. 
I had not had time, after the division of the treasure, 
to send fit persons to occupy and protect the differ- 
ent parganas and stations. The heats this year 

^ Perhaps the famous Koh-i-nur : see an interesting article by Mr. 
H. Beveridge in the Calcutta Review, 1897, in which the history of 
this diamond is traced, and Ball's Travels of Tavernier, ii, app. i. 



CONQUEST OF DELHI 205 

chanced to be unusually oppressive, and many men 
dropped at about the same time, as though struck 
by the samum, and died on the spot.' 

The troops began to murmur. They longed for 
the cool air of Kabul, and even made ready to re- 
turn. They looked upon India as a buccaneer looked 
on a gallion : the prize money secured, they wished 
to make sail. They had to deal with an obstinate 
man, however, and Babar summoned the chief officers 
together and made them a speech. He recalled their 
past toil and labours together, the weary marches 
and grievous hardships, and reminded them that all 
these had been endured for the sake of the great re- 
ward which was now theirs. ' A mighty enemy had 
been overcome, and a rich and powerful kingdom 
was at their feet. And now, having attained our 
goal and won our game, are we to turn back from all 
we have accomplished and fly to Kabul like men who 
have lost and are discomfited? Let no man who 
calls himself my friend ever again moot such a thing. 
But if there be any one of you who cannot bring 
himself to stay, then let him go.' Thoroughly 
ashamed, the murmurers dared not say a word. 
There are few acts more splendidly heroic in Babar's 
•career than this bold resolve to stay where he was — 
in the middle of India, among hostile nations, and a 
discontented soldiery — and the reward of his firm- 
ness soon appeared. Not only his own people but 
many of his enemies were won over. First an 
Afghan officer came with a valuable contingent of 
two or three thousand retainers from the Doab. Then 
a powerful chief was won by the emperor's clemency 



206 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

to his captured sons. Meanwhile Sambhal was taken 
by guile ; and Humayun led an army against the in- 
surgent Afghans in the east, who were advancing into 
the Doab, but immediately broke up on his approach 
and fled over the Ganges. The young prince pur- 
sued, took Jaunpur and Ghazipur, and leaving strong 
divisions to hold his conquests, marched back by 
way of Kalpi to support his father against a pressing 
danger. 

For Babar was now coming to the grip with the 
only formidable rival left in Hindustan. The great 
Rana Sanga of Chitor, the revered head of all the 
Rajput princes, commanded a vast army. One hund- 
red and twenty chieftains of rank, with 80,000 horse 
and 500 war elephants, followed him to the field. 
The lords of Marwar and Amber, Gwaliar, Ajmir, 
Chanderi, and many more, brought their retainers 
to his standards ; and the battered old hero, who 
counted eighty wounds in his body, and had lost an 
arm and an eye in the wars, was not to be denied 
when his drums beat to battle. The famous Rana 
was now marching on Biana. The emperor sent oh 
a light detachment towards the threatened fortress, 
with orders to hang on the enemy and harass him ; 
and himself set out with his main body in battle, 
array on February i r, 1527. All his campaigns 
hitherto had been against fellow Muslims ; now, for 
the first time, he was marching against 'heathens'; 
it was the Jihad, the Holy War. Moreover these 
'heathens' were fighting men of the first class. 
Babar had some experience of the warlike capacities 
of various races. He knew the Mongol wheeling 



fVAJ? WITH RAJPUTS 20/ 

swoop, the Uzbeg charge, the Afghan skirmish, and 
the steady fighting of his own Turks ; but he was 
now to meet warriors of a higher type than any he 
had encountered. 'The Rajputs, energetic, chival- 
rous, fond of battle and bloodshed, animated by a 
strong national spirit, were ready to meet face to face 
the boldest veterans of the camp, and were at all 
times prepared to lay down their life for their 
honour.' 

* The emperor camped at Sikri — afterwards 
Akbar's exquisite palace-city of Fathpur — where he 
was joined by the garrison from Biana. These men 
had already received a lesson from the Rajputs, of 
whose bravery and daring they spoke with deep 
respect. The enemy was evidently not one that 
could be trifled with. An outpost affair soon con- 
firmed this impression : an incautious advance by 
one of the amirs was instantly detected by the 
Rajputs, who sent the Turks flying back to camp. 
Being now in touch with the enemy, the emperor 
put his army in battle array. As before at Panipat, 
he ranged the gun-carriages, and probably the bag- 
gage-wagons, so as to cover his front, and chained 
them together at a distance of five paces. Mustafa 
from Turkey ordered his artillery admirably in the 
Ottoman manner on the left wing, but Ustad Ali had 
a method of his own. Where there were no guns 
or wagons, a ditch was dug, backed by portable 
wooden tripods on wheels, lashed together at a few 
paces apart.' These preparations took twenty-five 
days, and were designed to restore the confidence of 
the troops, who were almost in a panic at the reports 



208 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

of the numbers and courage of the Rajputs and at 
the foolish predictions of a rascally astrologer. 

It was at this crisis that Babar renounced wine, 
broke his drinking cups, poured out the stores of 
liquor on the ground, and calling his dispirited 
officers together, addressed them : ' Gentlemen and 
Soldiers, — Every man that comes into the world 
must pass away : God alone is immortal, unchange- 
able. Whoso sits down to the feast of life must end 
by drinking the cup of death. All visitors of the inn 
of mortality must one day leave this house of sorrow. 
Rather let us die with honour than live disgraced. 

With fame, though I die, I am content, 
Let fame be mine, though life be spent. 

God most high has been gracious in giving us this 
destiny, that if we fall we die martyrs, if we conquer 
we triumph in His holy cause. Let us swear with 
one accord by the great name of God that we will 
never turn back from such a death, or shrink from 
the stress of battle, till our souls are parted from our 
bodies.' 

The response was enthusiastic. Every man seized 
the Koran and took the oath, and the army began to 
pluck up heart. Babar resolved to advance upon the 
enemy. On New Year's Day, March 12, he writes : — 
' I advanced my wagons [and guns] and tripods with 
all the apparatus and machines that I had prepared, 
and marched forward with my army in order of 
battle — right wing, left wing, and centre in their 
places. In front were the wagons, gun-carriages, and 
tripods on wheels, and behind came Ustad Ali Kuli 



BA TTLE OF KANWAHA 209 

with a body of his matchlock men, to prevent the 
communication being cut off between the artillery 
and the infantry behind, and to enable them to ad- 
vance and form into line. When the ranks were 
formed and every man in his place, I galloped along 
the line, encouraging the begs and men of the cen- 
tre, right, and left, giving special directions to each 
division how to act, and to each man orders how to 
proceed and engage. Then, when all was arranged, 
I moved the army on in order of battle for a couple 
of miles, when we camped.' On Saturday March 
16, 1527, the two armies met at Kanwaha. The 
battle began by a desperate charge of the Rajputs 
upon the emperor's right, which he instantly sup- 
ported from his reserves, whilst opening fire with his 
artillery from the centre. It was impossible to stop 
a Rajput charge, however ; they came on, wave after 
wave, against the cannon, and the fight grew more 
and more desperate. After several hours of hand 
to hand conflict Babar sent orders to his flanking 
columns to wheel and charge in the famous Mongol 
tactics, whilst at the same time he ordered his guns 
forward and sent out the household troops at the 
gallop on each side of his centre of matchlock-men, 
who also advanced firing. This combined manoeuvre 
shook the enemy. Few Indians will fight when 
taken in the rear. The Rajputs were pressed into a 
disordered crowd, and nothing but their indomitable 
gallantry prolonged a battle that was fast becoming a 
massacre. Ustad All's ' huge balls ' did fearful execu- 
tion, and at last the splendid chivalry of India gave 

up hope, forced its way through the encompassing 
14 



2IO MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Turks, and fled in every direction, leaving heaps 
of slain upon the fields. Many chiefs had fallen, 
and the heads of the noble Rajputs rose in a ghastly 
tower erected by their conqueror. Sanga escaped, 
severely wounded, and died soon after, but no raja of 
his line ever again took the field in person against an 
emperor of Babar's house. 

Within a year the invader had struck two decisive 
blows, which shattered the power of two great forces. 
At Panipat the Mohammedan Afghans went down ; 
Kanwaha crushed the confederacy of the bravest 
Hindus. The storming of the fortress of Chanderi, 
the stronghold of Medini Rao, the great Rajput vezir 
of Malwa, coTnpleted the overthrow. When the 
upper fort was carried, the desperate garrison killed 
their women and children, and rushing forth naked 
threw themselves upon the Muslim swords, and such 
as came through leaped over the ramparts to certain 
death. There was no more trouble with the 
Rajputs. 

It was otherwise with the Afghans. Beaten at 
Delhi they were still strong in Bihar, and had even 
resumed the offensive when they saw the emperor 
absorbed in the Rajput campaign. But their time 
of retribution was at hand, and as soon as Chanderi 
had fallen Babar set out in February, 1528, to reduce 
the eastern province. The Afghans fell back from 
Kanauj at his approach, and awaited him on the 
further bank of the Ganges. Babar set up his camp 
opposite and ordered a pontoon to be thrown across 
the sea-like stream. ' The Afghans mocked at so 
wild a project, but the bridge went on ; and the 



212 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

skilful fire of the matchlocks and artillery, discharged 
from an island and from a battery on the bank, pro- 
tected the engineers who were constructing the 
pontoon. Ustad Ali even succeeded in firing off 
the big cannon called 'Dig Ghazi' ('victorious 
gun,' a title it had won in the battle of Kanwaha) 
no less than sixteen times a day, which was clearly 
a record performance at that time. On March 13 
the bridge was finished, and some of the infantry 
and the Panjab troops were sent over to skirmish. 
On the three following days the artillery and the 
whole of the imperial forces were safely got across, 
but the enemy, after stubbornly fighting, decamped. 
They were hotly pursued nearly as far as Oudh, 
with the loss of their families and baggage, and 
many were overtaken and slain. The Afghan army 
was utterly dispersed for the time, and Babar 
returned to Agra for the rainy season.' 

The city was a very different place from the Agra 
he had found. He delighted in running water, and 
had sunk wells and built tanks among the tamarinds 
beside the Jumna, and planted roses and narcissi in 
regular parterres. In India a * garden * includes 
a dwelling, and Babar's Charbagh with its marble 
pavilions and beds of roses must have been a de- 
lightful palace. The Indians, who had never seen 
this sort of pleasure-ground, called it ' Kabul.' 

* He was not left long in repose. The Afghans in 
Bihar were not yet quelled. Mahmud Lodi, the 
brother of sultan Ibrahim, had arrived among them, 
and they flocked to the standard of their hereditary 
king. Jaunpur and most of Bihar declared for him, 



CAMPAIGN IN BIHAR 213 

and the many factions laid aside their rivalries for 
the moment to support the last chance of an Afghan 
restoration. Babar received this news in the middle 
of January, 1529, whilst he was staying at Dholpur, 
preparing for a predatory campaign in Sind. He at 
once returned to Agra and led his army out. At the 
news of his approach the large army of the Afghans, 
numbering, it was said, a hundred thousand men, 
melted away : the Lodi pretender fled from before 
Chunar, to which he was laying seige ; Sher Khan es- 
caped from Benares ; and as Babar pressed on to Bu- 
xar, several of the Afghan leaders came in to offer their 
submission ; and their prince, finding himself almost 
deserted, sought protection with the Bengal army.' 

The kingdom of Bengal, as we have seen, had 
long been independent of Delhi, and Babar had no 
immediate intention of subduing it, so long as it did 
not interfere with him. But the protection it was 
affording to the rebels was not the act of a friendly 
power, and the massing of the Bengal troops on the 
frontier was ominous. ' Reinforced by 20,000 men 
from Jaunpur, Babar resolved to force the passage 
of the Gogra in face of the Bengalis. He made 
unusually elaborate preparations, for he knew the 
enemy were skilful gunners, and were in great force. 
Ustad Ali was to plant his cannon, firengi pieces, 
and swivels on a rising ground at the point between 
the two rivers, and also keep up a hot fire from 
his matchlock-men upon the Bengali camp on the 
east bank of the Gogra. A little below the junction 
of the rivers, Mustafa was to direct a cannonade 
from his artillery, supported by matchlocks, on the 



214 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

enemy's flank, and upon the Bengal flotilla which lay 
off an island. The main army was formed up in six 
divisions, four of which, under the emperor's son 
Askari, were already north of the Ganges. These 
were to cross the Gogra by boats or fords, and keep 
the enemy busy while the artillery was being carried 
across, and a strong force was sent ahead to divert 
their attention. The fifth division, under Babar him- 
self was to support Ustad All's batteries above the 
confluence, and then to cross the Gogra under cover 
of the guns; whilst the sixth went to the support of 
Mustafa's artillery on the right bank of the Ganges. 
'On Sunday and Monday, May 2 and 3, 1529, 
these two divisions crossed the Ganges and on Tues- 
day they marched on to the Gogra. Ustad AH 
at the confluence was making excellent practice with 
his firengis upon the Bengal vessels in the river. 
Meanwhile news came that Askari had got his di- 
visions over the Gogra, and on the morning of 
Thursday, May 6, the battle began. The Bengal 
army, as was foreseen, moved up the river to meet 
Askari, and Babar at once ordered the fifth and 
sixth divisions to cross anyhow, swimming, in boats, 
or on bundles of reeds, and take the enemy in 
the rear. The movement was brilliantly carried out 
in the face of a determined resistance. Attacked in 
front and rear and flank, the enemy broke and fled. 
Good generalship had once more guided valour 
to victory. The result was the collapse of the 
Afghan rebellion, and the conclusion of a treaty of 
peace with Bengal. In three battles Babar had re- 
duced northern India to submission.' 



OCCUPATION OF HINDUSTAN 21 5 

It was his last exploit. The year and a half of 
life that remained to him he spent chiefly at Agra, 
endeavouring to set his new empire in order. For 
permanent organization there was really no time. 
A large part of his dominions was under very loose 
control and the polity of Hindustan under his rule 
was simply the strong hand of military power. In 
the more settled regions the lands and towns were 
parcelled out in fiefs among his officers or jagirdars, 
who levied the land-tax from the cultivators, the 
duties from the merchants and shopkeepers, and the 
poll-tax from the Hindus, and paid fixed contribu- 
tions in money and military service to the emperor. 
But the large zamindars or landholders were often 
so powerful that their dependence on the crown 
was little more than nominal, and India was still, as 
Erskine observes, ' rather a congeries of little states 
under one prince than one regular and uniformly 
governed kingdom.' The tribes of the frontier and 
hill districts can hardly be said to have submitted in 
more than form, and in Sind on the west and Bihar 
on the east the king's writ was lightly regarded. 
All the different provinces, however, according to a 
list in Babar's Memoirs, west to east from Bhira 
and Lahore to Bahraich and Bihar, and north to 
south from Sialkot to Rantambhor, contributed to 
the revenue, which is stated at fifty-two crores of 
tankas or dams, which comes to ^2,600,000 for 
the regular revenue from land-tax. Three quarters 
of a century later his grandson Akbar drew a reve- 
nue of over ^18,000,000 from the same source, 
though from a considerably larger area. 



2l6 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

It was probably during the comparative leisure of 
his last year that Babar wrote that valuable descrip- 
tion of Hindustan which displays his undiminished 
interest in natural history, and his singular quickness 
of observation. Though he had conquered his new 
empire he did not love it. 'The country and 
towns of Hindustan/ he writes, 'are extremely ugly. 
All its towns and lands have a uniform look ; its gar- 
dens have no walls ; the greater part of it is a level 
plain.' He found 'the plains' monotonous after 
the mountain scenery of Kabul and the well-watered 
orchards of Farghana. ' Hindustan, ' he adds, ' is a 
country that has few pleasures to recommend it. 
The people are not handsome. They have no idea 
of the charms of friendly society. They have no 
genius, no intellectual comprehension, no politeness, 
no kindness or fellow-feeling, no ingenuity or mechan- 
ical invention in planning or executing their handi- 
crafts, no skill or knowledge in design or architecture. 
They have no good horses, no good flesh, no grapes 
or musk-melons, no good fruits, no ice or cold water, 
no good food or bread in their bazars, no baths, or col- 
leges, or candles, or torches — never a candlestick! ' 

He would not have written this sweeping and 
wholly unjust condemnation had he lived longer in 
India and seen more of its people; and he does 
indeed admit that there are advantages, such as the 
abundance of workmen, and the * pleasant climate 
during the rains ' ; but, on the whole, to him ' the 
chief excellency of Hindustan is that it is a big 
country with plenty of gold and silver.' One can 
see that even from his throne at Agra he looks back 



BABAR'S GRAVE 21/ 

with regret to his own land, the land of melons and 
cool waters, and remembers with 'the pang of the 
exile the joyous days he spent beside the Kabul river. 
He was not the man he had been. Fever and a 
wandering restless life, joined to frequent bouts of 
drinking and constant use of opium, had undermined 
a wonderful constitution. Yet between his fits of 
fever his vigour remained extraordinary. He could 
take up a man under each arm, and run with them 
round the battlements of a fortress, leaping the em- 
brasures : and even in March, 1 529, he notes : * I swam 
across the river Ganges for amusement. I counted 
my strokes, and found that I swam over in thirty- 
three strokes. I then took breath, and swam back 
to the other side. I had crossed by swimming every 
river I had met, except only the Ganges.' He was 
also constantly in the saddle, and often he did his 
eighty miles a day. All this did not make for long 
life, and Babar's snapped with the suddenness of an 
overstrained spring. He passed away in his beauti- 
ful garden palace at Agra, on the 26th of De- 
cember, 1530, — a man of only forty-eight, a king 
of thirty-six years crowded with hardship, tumult, 
and strenuous energy — but he lies at peace in 
his grave in the garden on the hill at Kabul, ' the 
sweetest spot ' which he had chosen himself, sur- 
rounded by those he loved, by the sweet-smelling 
flowers of his choice, and the cool running stream ; 
and the people still flock to the tomb and offer 
prayers at the simple mosque which an august 
descendant built in memory of the founder of the 
Indian Empire, 



CHAPTER IX 

THE EBB OF THE TIDE 

HUMAYUN 

153O-1556 

IT was no easy throne that Babar left to his eldest 
son in December, 1530, nor was Humayun man 
enough to fill it. Though only twenty-three years 
of age, he was not without experience ; he had com- 
manded under his father in the Indian war, and gov- 
erned the outlying province of Badakhshan beyond 
the Hindu Kush. Babar had lavished good advice 
upon the son whom he loved above all things. 
* His presence,' he once wrote, * opened our hearts 
like rosebuds and made our eyes shine like torches. 
His conversation had an ineffable charm, and he 
realized absolutely the ideal of perfect manhood.' 
The young prince was indeed a gallant and loveable 
fellow, courteous, witty, and accomplished as his 
father, warm-hearted and emotional, almost quixotic 
in his notions of honour and magnanimity, per- 
sonally brave, — as indeed were all the princes of his 
house, — and capable of great energy on occasions. 

218 



BUM AY UN 219 

But he lacked character and resolution. He was in- 
capable of sustained effort, and after a moment of 
triumph would bury himself in his harim and dream 
away the precious hours in the opium-eater's paradise 
whilst his enemies were thundering at the gate. 
Naturally kind, he forgave when he should have 
punished ; light-hearted and sociable, he revelled at 
the table when he ought to have been in the saddle. 
His character attracts but never dominates. In pri- 
vate life he might have been a delightful companion 
and a staunch friend ; his virtues were Christian, and 
his whole life was that of a gentleman. But as a 
king he was a failure. His name means * fortunate,' 
and never was an unlucky sovereign more miscalled. 
The qualities most essential at the time of his 
accession were a firm grasp of the military situation 
and resolution to meet it. It was a position that 
called for boundless energy and soldierly genius. 
Babar, as we have seen, had not conquered Hin- 
dustan : he had only reduced to partial submis- 
sion a territory comprising little more than what 
we should now call the Panjab and North-West 
Provinces. He had not annexed Bengal to the east, 
nor the great provinces of Malwa and Gujarat, now 
united under one king, to the south. The many 
chiefs of Rajputana were cowed but not subdued, 
and in most of the outlying parts of the kingdom 
the Moghul power was but slightly recognized. 
Numerous Afghan officers still held powerful fiefs, 
and these men had not forgotten that the kings of 
Delhi had been Afghans but a few years before. 
When a member of the deposed dynasty appeared 



220 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

amongst them in Bihar, there were all the materials 
for a formidable insurrection. Thus even in his in- 
herited dominions — about an eighth part of all 
India — Humayun was not secure from rivals and 
revolts. 

Nor was he safe from the hostility of his own 
family. Babar had particularly commended his 
other sons to Humayun's kindness, and never was 
forbearance more cruelly tried. There was not one 
of his three brothers who did not intrigue against 
him. Kamran, the next in age, had been already 
ruler of Kabul under his father, and not only re- 
tained his western province but annexed the Panjab, 
always professing his allegiance to Humayun, whose 
pre-occupations no less than his brotherly kindness 
induced him to tolerate the usurpation. It was 
short-sighted policy, however, for with Kamran 
practically independent on the north-west frontier 
the main recruiting ground of the Moghul army was 
cut ofT. Hitherto the fighting strength of the Mus- 
lims in India had been nourished and restored by 
the hill tribes of Afghanistan and the men of the 
Oxus. Now that source was dammed, and Humayun 
was forced to depend upon the army already in 
India, which was constantly depleted by loss in 
battle, or by natural causes, without any resources 
of reinforcement, and was suffering the inevitable 
degeneration that overtakes a hardy race when ex- 
posed to the luxuries of wealth and the influence of 
an enervating climate. 

Kamran, a surly ill-conditioned traitor, unworthy 
of Babar's seed, was the most formidable of the 




BABAR, HUMAYUN, AKBAR, AND JAHANGIR, 



221 



222 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

brothers. Askari and Hindal, ever weak and shifty, 
were dangerous only as tools for ambitious men to 
play upon. Their repeated treachery towards their 
too magnanimous brother was of a piece with their 
general worthlessness. Two cousins, Mohammad 
Zaman and Mohammad Sultan, also made their 
futile bids for a throne which not one of the family 
was then great enough to hold. Humayun was too 
gentle to do the only prudent thing, to make an 
end of them, and to this beautiful but unwise 
clemency he owed part of his misfortunes. But his 
worst enemy was himself. Instead of taking a 
statesmanlike view of the situation, meeting the 
most pressing danger first, and crushing one an- 
tagonist before he engaged another, he frittered away 
his army in divided commands, and deprived it of its 
full strength ; he left one enemy unsubdued behind 
him while he turned to meet another; and when 
victory by chance rewarded his courage, rather than 
his tactics, he reposed upon his laurels and made 
merry with his friends whilst his foes used the precious 
time in gathering their forces for a fresh effort. 
Had he brought the whole of his strength to bear 
upon each enemy in turn he must have been suc- 
cessful ; for Babar's troops were still the men who 
had won Delhi and defeated Sanga, and Babar's 
generals were still in command of their divisions. 
But Humayun weakened their valour and destroyed 
their confidence by division and vacillation, neglected 
the counsels of the commanders, and displayed such 
indecision that it is a marvel that any army still 
adhered to his falling fortunes. 



MISTAKEN STRATEGY 223 

There were three ominous clouds on his horizon 
when he came to the throne. On the north-west 
was his brother Kamran ; but as he professed loyalty, 
however insincerely, Humayun was fain to let him 
alone. On the east were the Afghans in Bihar, with 
a brother of the late Lodi sultan of Delhi at their 
head. On the south was Bahadur Shah, the king 
of Gujarat and Malwa, actively pressing his triumphs 
over the Rajputs and rapidly approaching within 
striking distance of Agra. He too had a pretender 
to put forward in the person of the cousin already 
named, Mohammad Zaman. Of the two chief perils 
the king of Gujarat was the more imposing, but the 
Afghan confederacy the more dangerous adversary. 
Humayun was perpetually hesitating between the 
two. First he marched to Bihar and easily disposed of 
Mahmud the Lodi in a decisive victory near Lucknow 
in 1 53 1. Instead of following up his success by crush- 
ing the routed Afghans with his utmost strength, he 
abandoned the siege of Chunar, Sh'er Khan's strong- 
hold in Bihar, accepted a purely perfunctory submis- 
sion, and left thus the most capable, unscrupulous, 
and ambitious man in the whole Afghan party free to 
mature his plans and strengthen his power whilst 
the emperor was away at the other end of Hindustan. 

It was the fear of the king of Gujarat that in- 
duced this fatal retreat. Bahadur Shah undoubtedly" 
was aiming at the conquest of Delhi, but he was 
not ready for it yet, and such raids or expeditions 
as he had encouraged the pretenders to the throne 
to lead against Agra and Kalinjar had been easily 
repulsed by the imperial troops. When Humayun, 



224 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

abandoning the fruits of his victory at Lucknow, 
arrived in Malwa at the close of 1534, he found 
Bahadur busily engaged in the siege of the great 
Rajput fortress of Chitor. Instead of attacking at 
once, and by his timely interference probably win- 
ning to his side the inestimable friendship of the 
Rajput chiefs, he must needs stand by till the quar- 
rel was fought out/ It was admirable chivalry to 
call a truce while his Muslim enemy was waging 
what might be termed a Holy War against Hindu 
'infidels,* and one cannot help respecting Huma- 
yun's quixotic observance of a Mohammedan scruple 
of honour; mais ce n etait pas la guerre. Profiting 
by the emperor's fine feelings, Bahadur stormed 
Chitor ; the Rajput women eagerly rushed upon the 
swords of their husbands and fathers to escape the 
shame of Muslim harims ; the men sallied forth to be 
slaughtered ; and the conquerer turned to meet his 
complaisant foe, who amiably awaited the issue. 

Flushed with recent victory the Gujaratis might 
probably have overwhelmed Humayun's army, on 
which the irritation as well as the revels of the delay 
had exerted their usual influences ; but the triumph 
of the heavy artillery in the siege of Chitor had 
given undue weight to the advice of the Ottoman 
engineer, the *Rumi Khan,' who had worked the 
guns with the help of Portuguese and other Euro- 
pean gunners; and, as with Sir John Burgoyne 
before Sevastopol, the voice of the engineer pre- 
vailed over the bolder counsels of the cavalry leaders. 
At the Rumi Khan's motion, instead of falling in- 

* Tabakat-i-Akbari, E. and D., v, 191. 



CONQUEST OF MALWA 22 5 

stantly upon the imperial troops, the army of Guja- 
rat penned itself up in a fortified camp. The enemy, 
as the engineer foretold, confronted by the big guns, 
could not get in ; but on the other hand the defend- 
ers could not get out. The open country around 
was in the hands of the Moghul archers, whose 
arrows gave short shrift to any men of Gujarat who 
ventured outside the ditch. Famine rendered the 
camp untenable, and at last in the dead of night 
Bahadur slunk away with only five followers. His 
army, discovering the desertion, immediately dis- 
persed, and Humayun, on seeking the cause of the 
unusual hubbub, found himself in undisputed pos- 
session of the vast camp and all the spoils of the 
enemy. On this occasion he showed unwonted 
energy ; pursued the king of Gujarat to Mandu, and 
on to Champanir, and Ahmadabad, and thence to 
Cambay, one flying out as the other entered in ; 
till Bahadur at last found refuge in the island of 
Diu. Malwa and Gujarat — two provinces equal in 
area to all the rest of Humayun's kingdom — had 
fallen like ripe fruit into his hands. Never was 
conquest so easy. 

Never, too, was conquest more recklessly squan- 
dered away. The vast spoils of the Gujarat camp, 
of Champanir, and of Cambay, utterly demoralized 
the Moghuls. The emperor had shown energy and 
decision in the pursuit ; he had proved his mettle 
when he himself took part in scaling the fort of 
Champanir by means of iron spikes, the forty-first 
man to reach the battlements. Then came the 

reaction. Instead of insuring the efficient control 

15 



226 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

and administration of his new acquisitions, Huma- 
yun devoted himself to festivities in Malwa, while 
his brother Askari, as viceroy of Gujarat, revelled at 
Ahmadabad, and even boasted in his cups that he 
was king, and prepared to oust his brother, just as if 
there were no enemies in the land. The result of 
this foolish confidence was soon seen. The local 
governors and chiefs were still loyal to Bahadur, and 
he had purchased the support of the Portuguese by 
allowing them to build a fort at Diu. Finding his 
invaders fast asleep, the king advanced, and was 
everywhere welcomed with enthusiasm. Askari re- 
tired, and Gujarat reverted to its old ruler. Nor 
was this all. Humayun's fatal weakness in Bihar 
was working its inevitable punishment. Sher Khan 
had become supreme on the borders of Bengal, and 
Mohammad Sultan was already proclaimed king at 
Kanauj. What ought to have been done before 
had to be done now, and Humayun marched north 
to recover what his own folly had lost. No sooner 
was he gone than Malwa threw off the Moghul 
authority and was joined again to Gujarat. One 
year had seen the rapid conquest of the two great 
provinces ; the next saw them as quickly lost. 

The only justification for the abandonment of so 
rich a prize would be the paramount necessity of 
suppressing the growing revolt in the eastern pro- 
vinces. Yet the feckless emperor wasted a whole 
year at Agra in merrymaking and opiated idleness 
before he moved to the scene of rebellion. He even 
thought of first returning to recover Malwa and 
Gujarat before grappling with the very danger that 



SHER KAN 227 

had caused their abandonment. Nothing could 
more clearly show the incurable vacillation and 
military incompetence of this amiable prince. When 
at last he set out in July, 1537, with every man he 
could muster, he carried all before him. The Rumi 
Khan, who, being an adventurer, had deserted to 
the winning side on the flight of the king of Gujarat, 
now plied his guns for Humayun, and his science 
compelled the surrender of Sher Khan's fortress of 
Chunar, in the absence of its lord, who was then 
busily engaged in reducing the whole of Bengal to 
his sway. 

This indomitable Afghan, whose bold career de- 
serves a volume to itself, had long fixed his eyes on 
the decaying power of the Bengal kings and dreamed 
of a restoration of the Afghan ascendancy. De- 
scended from the royal house of Sur, kings of Ghor, 
he had risen from the rank of a mere administrator 
of a small district near Rohtas to be prime minister 
of one of the Lohani Afghans who styled themselves 
kings of Bihar in the time of Babar. On that 
emperor's advance, Sher Khan — 'Tiger -lord,' so 
called because he killed a tiger that lept suddenly 
upon the king of Bihar — at first nominally sided 
with the conqueror, but this did not prevent his join- 
ing in Mahmud Lodi's attempt to recover the throne, 
nor his treacherously deserting the pretender at the 
battle with Humayun near Lucknow which dispelled 
the Lodi's hopes. Though then again nominally 
reconciled with the Moghuls, and making his submis- 
sion to Humayun when Chunar was besieged in 
1532, the Afghan chief never abandoned his dream 



228 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

of sovereignty. During Humayun's long absence in 
the west, he skilfully enlarged his territories and 
strengthened his army, and while the emperor was 
busy for six months in a second siege of Chunar its 
master was conquering Gaur, the capital of Bengal. 

With unusual energy Humayun immediately 
pressed on to eject him before conquest had been 
consolidated into permanent rule in the wealthiest 
agricultural province of Hindustan. Sher Khan 
would listen to no overtures, though the emperor 
offered him pardon and the government of Jaunpur 
if he would submit. Leaving his son Jalal Khan to 
hold the pass which leads from Bihar into Bengal at 
the foot of the Rajmahall hills, the Afghan hurriedly 
conveyed his booty, treasure, artillery, and family 
into the impregnable fort of Rohtas, which he 
captured from its Hindu chief by the familiar strata- 
gem of introducing armed men in women's litters. 
As soon as this manoeuvre was accomplished and all 
was safe in Rohtas, Jalal, who had held the pass as 
long as was needed and had inflicted considerable 
loss on the imperial advance guard, joined his father, 
and Humayun was allowed to march into Bengal 
(1538). He entered a devastated and ruined country, 
and found a capital strewn with corpses. Neverthe- 
less here he enjoyed himself and feasted six precious 
months away, admiring the sights of the fertile pro- 
vince, and indulging with all his court and all his 
army in 'jollity and sensual pursuits.* 

During this interval of periodical eclipse the em- 
peror seems never to have realized that he was cut 
off. Sher Khan, a master of strategy, had let 



HUM A YUN IN BENGAL 229 

Humayun into Bengal only to seize the approaches 
and sever his communications. He had the less diffi- 
culty inasmuch as the emperor, with his usual im- 
providence, had taken no steps to keep them 
open ; whilst in the west his brothers were quite 
satisfied to leave him to his fate. Hindal, who had 
taken part in the Bengal campaign, and had been 
allowed to go to Tirhut to bring up stores, seized the 
opportunity to return to Agra, where he w^as soon 
persuaded by interested counsellors to proclaim him- 
self emperor; and the pious shaikh, whom Humayun 
sent to bring him gently to reason, was murdered by 
the inflated usurper. Loyal officers, anxious to pre- 
serve Delhi for the lawful sovereign, called in the 
help of Kamran, who quickly reduced the preten- 
sions of his younger brother. But Kamran was as 
unwilling as Hindal to go to the rescue of the 
emperor, whose critical position was perfectly known 
to all. They went a few marches together, and 
then turned back. Their plan was to let Humayun 
be worsted by Sher Khan and then to engage the 
Afghan in their own behoof. They did not know the 
man they had to deal with. Sher Khan had seized 
every road leading from Bengal, he was laying siege 
to Chunar and Jaunpur, held all the country as far 
west as Kanauj, and had proclaimed himself king at 
Rohtas with the title of Sultan Sher Shah. 

These disastrous tidings, filtering through the 
bazar gossip, gradually roused Humayun from his 
torpor. With mutiny open or concealed at Agra, 
with a rival king standing across his communications 
and besieging his cities, with no hope of succour from 



230 



MEDIMVAL INDIA 



any side, it was certainly time to act. Six months 
had he trifled in Bengal, and now the question was 
how to get out. His troops were demoralized by 
dissipation, disheartened by inaction, and reduced 
by sickness. They had to be bribed to advance. 
When they did at last march, they met with no op- 
position. Sher Shah was known to be on the watch, 
but he did not attempt to stop them. His design 
was apparently to avoid a pitched battle and rather 
to harass and if possible surprise the imperial army 
than to attempt its destruction in the field. Huma- 
yun accordingly was suffered to march along the left 
bank of the Ganges as far as Manghir, where he de- 





SILVER COIN OF SHER SHAH STRUCK AT DELHI, A.H. 947 (A.D. 1540-1). 



liberately crossed over to the right or south bank — 
the side on which Sher Shah lay — in order appar- 
ently to show that he was not afraid of him. 

Thus he proceeded past Patna till he reached a 
spot close to where the battle of Buxar two hundred 
and thirty years later once more decided the fate of 
the same Moghul empire. Here, at Chaunsa, the 
army was suddenly checked by Sher Shah, who, 
tempted by the dispirited state of the imperialists, 
abandoned his watching attitude and rode in hot 



VICTORY OF SHER SHAH 23 1 

haste to stop their advance. The two forces camped 
opposite one another, and as neither seemed strong 
enough to warrant an attack, there they remained 
confronted for two months. The imperial troops 
were suffering grievously. The cattle and many of 
the horses were dead, troopers were dismounted, the 
country in front was in the enemy's hands, supplies 
were scarce, and of any help from Agra there was no 
hope. The situation was desperate and Humayun 
opened negotiations. A treaty was arranged by 
which Sher Shah was to retain Bengal and part of 
Bihar, bn condition of due and public recognition of 
the emperor as his suzerain. Everything seemed 
settled or on the point of settlement, and the two 
armies began to fraternize whilst preparing to break 
up their camp. Suddenly, in the midst of the con- 
fusion of the removal, at break of dawn, the Afghans 
fell upon the unsuspecting Moghuls from all sides. 
The surprise was complete. Many were slain asleep. 
Few had time to mount. Humayun himself was 
only saved by a water-carrier who supported him on 
his water-skin across the Ganges, into which he had 
recklessly plunged. Most of his army was drowned 
or captured, and the unlucky emperor arrived at 
Agra almost alone (May, 1539). 

For nearly a year both sides gathered their forces 
for the final struggle : Sher Shah consolidating his 
power in Bengal ; Humayun vacillating and wasting 
time, yet striving to unite his brothers in the com- 
mon cause. On May 17, 1540, the armies met again 
opposite Kanauj, and the ' battle of the Ganges ' for 
a time put an end to the Moghul empire. Humayuns' 



232 MEDIALVAL INDIA 

army, though at first 100,000 strong, was half-hearted, 
badly officered, weakened by constant desertions, and 
hampered with crowds of panic-stricken camp-fol- 
lowers ; and the fight was over almost as soon as 
begun. ' Before the enemy had discharged an arrow,' 
says the historian Mirza Haidar, who was present, 
' the whole army was scattered and defeated ' by 
mere panic and crowding ; ' not a gun was fired.' All 
fled to the Ganges, where the bridge broke down and 
many were drowned in their heavy armour. Hu- 
mayun again escaped by the skin of his teeth. India 
had cast him off. 

From that day for fifteen years he led a life of 
wandering. He was in the deserts of Rajputana 
and Sind for three years, in great straits and hard- 
ships, trying to beat up recruits ; here he fell in love 
with the daughter of his brother Hindal's shaikh, a 
sayyid of the Prophet's race ; and here at Amarkot 
his son Akbar was born, October 15, 1542. Then 
he fled to Persia, where he became the not very wel- 
come guest of Shah Tahmasp. Aided by the shah 
he conquered Kandahar from his own brother Askari 
in 1545, and took Kabul from Kamran in 1547. He 
was now in much the same position that Babar had 
occupied before his invasion of India twenty-five 
years earlier. 

The next nine years were spent in varying fortunes, 
sometimes in conquest, sometimes in loss, and it was 
not till his brothers were dead or exiled that Hu- 
mayun had peace in his little Afghan realm. Hindal 
fell in battle; Askari died on pilgrimage to Mekka; 
and the irreconcilable Kamran, after repeated for- 



REFORMS OF SHER SHAH 233 

givings, had to be blinded and sent to Mekka where 
he too died. Humayun owed much of his misfor- 
tunes to this unnatural brother, and cannot be 
charged with anything but long-suffering patience of 
his misdeeds. 

Meanwhile Sher Shah had reduced the greater 
part of Hindustan to submission, and among the 
Muslims at least there was every disposition to hail 
the accession of an Afghan king, born in India, and 
gifted with unusual administrative as well as military 
talents. His ability and wisdom are unquestioned, 
and in his fiscal and other reforms we see the true 
origin of many of Akbar's most famous measures. 
' The whole of his brief administration,' says Mr. 
Keene,^ * was based on the principle of union. A 
devout Muslim, he never oppressed his Hindu sub- 
jects. The disputes of his own people he suppressed 
with all the energy of his nature. He laboured day 
and night, for he said " It behooves the great to be 
always active." He divided his territory into hund- 
reds, in each of which were local officers whose place 
it was to mediate between the people and the officers 
of the crown. Not content with the administrative side 
of social reform, he went beyond most Muslim rulers 
and attempted a certain crude legislation. The 
nature of the attempts attributed to him shows that 
a critical moment was passing in mediaeval India. 
His ordinances touched on almost all the primary 
parts of administration, and evinced real care for the 
people's welfare. . . . All this has an importance 
beyond the immediate time. After the Moghul 

^ History of Hindustan^ 79-Si. 



234 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

restoration Sher Shah's officials passed into Akbar's 
service ; the faults imputed by the shah to what he 
called Moghul administration — but which are com- 
mon to all Turks — were prevented ; and this far- 
sighted man, even after his death and the subversion 
of his dynasty, remained the originator of all that 
was done by mediaeval Indian rulers for the good of 
the people.' 

It must not be imagined that all this was accom- 
plished by mildness. ' Sher Shah's authority,' says 
his historian. Abbas Khan, * whether he was absent 
or present, was completely established over the race 
of Afghans. From the fear either of personal pun- 
ishment or of deprivation of office there was not a 
creature who dared to act in opposition to his regu- 
lations ; and if a son of his own, or a brother, or any 
of his relations and kin, or any chief or minister, did 
a thing displeasing to Sher Shah, and it got to his 
knowledge, he would order him to be bound and put 
to death. All, laying aside every bond of friendship 
or regard, for the sake of the honour of the Afghan 
name, obeyed unhesitatingly his irresistible decrees. 
. . . From the day that Sher Shah was established 
on the throne no man dared to breathe in opposition 
to him ; nor did anyone raise the standard of con- 
tumacy or rebellion against him ; nor was any heart- 
tormenting thorn grown in the garden of his 
kingdom ; nor was there any of his nobles or 
soldiery, or a thief or a robber, who dared to turn 
the eye of dishonesty upon another's goods, nor did 
any robbery or stealing ever occur in his dominions. 
Travellers and wayfarers in Sher Shah's reign had 



236 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

no need to keep watch, nor feared to halt in the 
midst of a desert. They camped at night at every 
place, desert or inhabited, without fear ; they set 
their goods and provisions upon the plain and 
turned out their mules to graze, and themselves slept 
with easy mind and free from care as if at home, and 
the mansabdars (for fear that they should suffer and 
be arrested for any mischief that might befall the 
travellers) kept watch over them. '' Such a protec- 
tion o'ershadowed the world that a cripple was not 
afraid of a Rustam." ' ^ 

His brief but beneficent rule came to an end in 
1545 when he was killed at the siege of Kalinjar 
during a vigorous attempt to subdue the indomit- 
able Rajputs. He left no fit successor to carry on his 
wise schemes, on which he was still meditating as he 
lay wounded in his tent. Under his son Islam Shah 
the ancient rivalries of the Afghans revived, and 
when Islam Shah died nine years later everything 
was in confusion. His son, a boy of twelve, was 
murdered by his uncle Adil Shah (or Adali), a de- 
bauched brute, who left all real power in the hands 
of his Hindu vezir Himu. Naturally rebellions 
arose. Ibrahim Sur seized Delhi and Agra, and 
Sikandar Sur, another nephew of Slier Shah, took 
possession of the Panjab, and then drove Ibrahim 
out of his new sovereignty. 

In the midst of this turmoil Humayun, for once, 
grasped his opportunity. Descending from Kabul 
with only 15,000 horse in 1555, and seizing the 
Panjab, he routed Sikandar at Sirhind, drove him 

^ Tarikh-i-Sher- Shahi, E. and D., iv, 427, 433. 



RETURN OF HUM AY UN 237 

to the Himalayas, and took possession of Delhi and 
Agra. Prince Akbar was sent in pursuit of the 
fugitive Afghans, whilst Humayun set about organ- 
izing his recovered kingdom. It seemed as if his 
luck had turned at last. But nothing ever went well 
for long with this unfortunate monarch. Scarcely 
had he enjoyed his throne at Delhi for six months 
when he slipped down the polished steps of his 
palace, and died in his forty-ninth year (Jan. 24, 
1556). His end was of a piece with his character. 
If there was a possibility of falling, Humayun was 
not the man to miss it. He tumbled through life, and 
he tumbled out of it. At his tomb, three centuries 
later, the last of the Moghul emperors, the feeble 
and aged Shah Alam, surrendered to Hodson of 
Hodson's Horse, and the old man's savage and 
worthless sons paid the penalty of their treachery. 
It was perhaps fitting that the grave of the humane 
and chivalrous son of Babar should be the silent wit- 
ness of a righteous vengeance. 




CHAPTER X 



THE UNITED EMPIRE 



AKBAR 



1556-1605 

THE long reign of Akbar, which lasted from 1556 
to 1605, has been represented as the golden 
age of the Moghul empire. It was in reality but 
the beginning of the period of splendour which 
ended with the disastrous wars of Aurangzib. 
Akbar was the true founder and organizer of the 
empire, but it is too often forgotten that it took 
him twenty years of hard fighting to bring Hin- 
dustan under subjection, and that even at his death 
the process was incomplete. There was no sudden 
and miraculous submission to the boy of thirteen 
who found himself called to an as yet unconquered 
throne by the accident that ended his father's in- 
effectual life in the beginning of 1556. A hard strug- 
gle was before him ere he could call himself king 
even of Delhi. He was fortunate, no doubt, in the 
divisions of his adversaries, and after the crushing 
defeat of Himu at Panipat he was never called upon 

238 



TWENTY YEARS' FIGHTING 239 

to meet a general muster of Indian troops ; but the 
process of reducing usurper after usurper, and sup- 
pressing one rebellion after another, was tedious and 
harassing, and in spite of a wise statesmanship 
matured by experience, and a clemency and tolera- 
tion which grew with advancing years, to the day of 
his death Akbar seldom knew what it was to enjoy 
a year's freedom from war. 

At the time of his accession the only parts of 
India that he possessed were the Panjab and Delhi 
in the north, which were the fruits of the victory at 
Sirhind in 1555. The Afghan dynasty still held 
Bengal and the Ganges valley ; the Rajputs were 
independent in western Hindustan, and there were 
innumerable chiefs in possession of separate prin- 
cipalities all over the country. It was not till the 
third year of his reign that Akbar was able to oc- 
cupy Ajmir. Gwaliar fell in 1558, and by 1561 he 
had driven the Afghans back from Lucknow and 
Jaunpur. The Moghul empire so far was almost re- 
stricted to the Panjab and the North-West Prov- 
inces, though Malwa was partly overrun in 1561, and 
Burhanpur in Khandesh captured a year later. The 
storming of Chitor in 1567 was a conspicuous land- 
mark in the history, but it was not till 1572 that the 
Rajputs were finally brought into the empire. Ben- 
gal was not conquered before 1575, and Gujarat, 
though occupied in 1572, had to be retaken in 1584 
and gave trouble for several years more. Kabul, 
under his brother Hakim, was almost a separate 
kingdom and frequently aggressive. Among the 
outlying provinces, Orisa became part of the empire 



240 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

as late as 1590, Kashmir in 1587, Sind in 1592, 
Kandahar in 1594, and only a small portion of the 
Deccan was annexed in Akbar's life. 

The reign was thus a perpetual series of efforts 
towards the expansion of an originally small terri- 
tory. So doubtful indeed seemed Akbar's prospects 
of Indian sovereignty at the moment when his 
father's unexpected death placed him in command, 
that in the first council of war the generals strongly 
urged an immediate retreat upon Kabul, and their 
advice was only overruled by the firm decision of 
the regent Bairam, an old Turkman of^cer who had 
followed Babar and Humayun, and realized better 
than the others the divided and leaderless state of 
the enemy. Matters were certainly in an alarming 
position. Sikandar of Delhi had been driven to the 
mountains, where he held Mankot against all attacks ; 
but a far more formidable army was marching to 
take vengeance. Himu, the general of the Bengal 
kingdom, a Hindu who from a mere shopkeeper had 
rapidly advanced to practically supreme power, en- 
tered Agra unopposed, defeated Tardi Beg at Delhi, 
occupied the capital, assumed the historic title of 
Raja Vikramajit, and then advanced to crush the 
Moghul forces. 

When the dispirited remnant of the garrison of 
Delhi reached Akbar's headquarters at Sirhind, news 
had just arrived of another blow, the revolt of 
Kabul. Fortunately the young emperor had a great 
soldier at his side to meet the crisis. Bairam, the 
atalik or regent, was a consummate general, and a 
man of iron resolution. He instantly made an 



BATTLE OF PANIPAT 24 1 

example of Tardi Beg, for the loss of Delhi, 
and placed the other disgraced officers under 
arrest. Then he sent on the advance - guard, 
which was lucky enough to intercept the entire 
park of Ottoman artillery which Himu had in- 
cautiously sent adrift ; and on Friday the 5th of 
November, 1556, the two armies confronted each 
other on the field of Panipat, where thirty years 
before Babar had overthrown the Afghan power, 
and where two centuries later another battle swept 
away the Maratha hordes and prepared the way for 
England. 

In spite of the loss of his guns, Himu commanded 
a force sufficient to dismay the Moghul leaders. He 
had three divisions, of which the centre was com- 
posed of 20,000 horse (Afghans and Rajputs) sup- 
ported by 500 elephants, and the whole force of 
elephantry numbered at least 1500. Himu led the 
advance, ' scowling on his elephant Hawa, "' the 
Wind." ' His charge upon the Moghul left was suc- 
cessful ; he then turned to crush their centre. But 
here the archers stood firm, the enemy were harassed 
by showers of arrows, and one fortunate shaft pierced 
the eye of the Hindu leader. There was no one in 
authority to take up the command, and the master- 
less crowd broke up like a herd of stampeded horses. 
Himu on his elephant was driven straight into 
the presence of Akbar, and Bairam bade the boy 
flesh his sword on the dying * infidel.* The honour- 
able chivalry which distinguished Akbar above all 
his line at once burst forth : ^ How can I strike 

a man who is as good as dead ? ' he cried. Bairam 
16 



242 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

had no such fine scruples, and immediately dis- 
patched the wounded man. 

The crisis had been bravely met, and Akbar had 
never again to confront so dangerous an enemy. 
Henceforward, though constantly fighting, he had 
the advantage — incalculable in oriental warfare — 
of being in the position of the attacker, not the 
attacked. Delhi again opened its gates and received 
him with effusive loyalty. Agra followed the ex- 
ample of the capital, and after an eight months* 
siege Sikandar surrendered Mankot and retired to 
Bengal. The young prince was now king at least 
in the north-west corner of India. The process of 
settling this comparatively small territory and deal- 
ing with the revenues and the status of the military 
vassals occupied the next few years, and, except for 
the reduction of the great fortress of Gwaliar and 
the conquest of the Ganges valley as far as Jaunpur 
and Benares, the limits of the kingdom were not 
greatly extended. 

In 1560 Akbar took the reins into his own hands. 
He had chafed under the masterful management of 
Bairam, whose severity and jealousy had been shown 
in several high-handed executions and had roused 
general discontent. Palace intrigue set Akbar's 
mind against his old tutor, who was doubtless slow 
to realize that his pupil was no longer a child to be 
held on a leading string. In an eastern harim there 
are powerful influences against which few ministers 
can prevail, and Akbar's foster-mother, Maham 
Anaga, ruled the palace in those early years. She 
used her power to undermine the emperor's esteem 











GOLD COINS OF AKBAK. 



I. Agra, A. H. 971. 

3. Mohammadabad (tJdaipur). 984. 

5. Agra, 1013. 



2. Agra, 981. 
4. Asir, 1008. 
6. 1013. 



243 



244 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

for Bairam. Taking advantage of a visit to Delhi, 
where he was free from the regent's domination, she 
worked upon his natural impatience of the khan- 
khanan's arrogance, and induced him to break his 
cords. Akbar publicly announced that he had taken 
the government into his own hands, and sent orders 
to the deposed minister to go on pilgrimage to 
Mekka — a courteous form of temporary banishment. 
The young emperor might perhaps have dealt more 
gently with the honoured servant of his father and 
grandfather, — one, too, who had so strenuously 
served him in his hour of peril, — but the change had 
to be made, and it could not be easy in any way. 
Bairam left for Gujarat, to take boat for Arabia, but 
on his way he fell among evil counsellors who 
tempted him to revolt. He was defeated, and made 
humble submission, when Akbar instantly pardoned 
him with all his old kindness. But there could 
be no place for Bairam now in the government, and 
he sadly set forth on his pilgrimage, once the chief 
desire of the staunch Muslim but now a mark of his 
downfall. Before he could embark he was assassin- 
ated by an Afghan in quittance of a blood-feud. 

The nurse's triumph was not for long. For a 
time she acted almost as a prime minister, and 
her quick intelligence as well as her devotion to her 
foster-son made her invaluable to him. Unhappily 
her hopes were wrapped up in her son, Adham 
Khan. She pushed him forward to high command, 
which he filled with more arrogance and conceit than 
loyalty ; he fell into disgrace, and when finally out 
of envy and chagrin, in 1563, he murdered Akbar's 



AKBAR ASSERTS HIMSELF 245 

foster-father the prime minister Shams-ad-din, and 
then stood at the door of the harim as if in sanctu- 
ary, his cup was full. The emperor rushed out, 
sword in hand, felled the assassin with a blow of his 
fist, and foster-brother though he was Adham was 
instantly thrown over the battlements of the palace. 
It broke his mother's heart, and she survived him 
but forty days. 

It was time that Akbar freed himself from this 
harim influence. Adham had already tarnishe'd the 
emperor's name in Malwa, where after expelling the 
pleasure-loving cultured Afghan governor Baz Baha- 
dur, he behaved grossly towards the vanquished. 
' Baz Bahadur had a Hindu mistress who is said 
to have been one of the most beautiful women ever 
seen in India. She was as accomplished as she was 
fair, and was celebrated for her verses in the Hindi 
language. She fell into the hands of Adham Khan 
on the flight of Baz Bahadur, and, finding herself 
unable to resist his importunities and threatened 
violence, she appointed an hour to receive him, put 
on her most splendid dress, on which she sprinkled 
the richest perfumes, and lay down on a couch with 
her mantle drawn over her face. Her attendants 
thought that she had fallen asleep, but on endeavour- 
ing to awake her on the approach of the khan, they 
found she had taken poison, and was already dead.' ' 
Nor was this all. Other ladies of Baz Bahadur's 
harim were in Adham's possession, and when Akbar 
himself rode to Malwa in hot haste and bitter shame 
to stop his lieutenant's atrocities, Maham Anaga had 
^Khafi Khan; Elphinstone, 501, note. 



246 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

these innocent women killed, lest they should tell 
tales to the emperor. Akbar was well quit of both 
mother and son. 

Although the young emperor was still immature, 
and it was many years before he entered upon that 
stage of philosophic enlightenment which has made 
his name a household word for wisdom and tolera- 
tion, he had already shown something of his char- 
acter and self-reliance. His refusal to strike the 
dying Himu, his firm and yet not unkind treatment 
of his revolted regent, his honest indignation at 
Adham's iniquities, show that Akbar possessed the 
right spirit. Physically he is described by his son 
Jahangir, in later life, as of middle stature, long in 
• the arms and sturdy of figure, rather sallow in face, 
with black eyes and eyebrows and an open fore- 
head. A wart on the left side of his nose was 
regarded as not only auspicious but exceedingly 
beautiful. His voice was ringing, and in spite of 
little culture his conversation had a charm of its 
own. * His manners and habits,' adds the son, ' were 
quite different from those of other people, and 
his countenance was full of godlike dignity.' His 
mode of life was regular and abstemious. His time 
was carefully filled, and he slept little; 'his sleep 
looked more like waking.' He ate but one meal a 
day, and that in moderation, never approaching 
satiety. Ganges water, ' cooled with saltpetre,' was 
his drink, and it was kept sealed for fear of poi- 
son. He took meat but twice a week, and even 
then with repugnance, for he disliked making his 
body a * tomb for beasts ' ; but some meat he found 



AKBAR'S SPORT 247 

necessary to support his fatigues. He was a man 
of great energy and constant occupation, capable of 
immense and prolonged effort, and fond of all manly 
exercises. He was a fine polo player, and so de- 
voted to the game that he used even to play it 
by night, using fireballs. The chase was his keenest 
delight, and he would break the tedium of the long 
marches of his many campaigns by hunting ele- 
phants or tigers on the way. We read of 350 
elephants taken in a single day ; at another time he 
stalked wild asses for thirty-five miles, and shot six- 
teen. He had names for his guns, and kept records 
of their performances. There were vast battues 
[kamurghd), when thousands of deer, nilgao, jackals, 
and foxes, were driven by the beaters in a circle 
of forty miles, and the lines drawn closer and closer, 
till Akbar could enjoy at his ease several days 
shooting and hawking with plenty of sport, and still 
leave a few thousand head for his followers to prac- 
tise on. These battues sometimes took place by 
night, and there is a curious painting of the period 
showing one of these nocturnal hunts, with the em- 
peror on horseback, and the game, startled by the 
bright flashing of a lantern, leaping as the chief shikar 
draws his bow. Akbar had mechanical genius. He 
devised a new method of making gun-barrels of 
spirally rolled iron, which could not burst; he in- 
vented a machine which cleaned sixteen barrels at 
once, and another by which seventeen guns could 
be fired simultaneously with one match. There 
were many other things that he improved by his 
talent for mechanical invention. 



248 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

Nothing seemed to fatigue Akbar. He is said to 
have ridden from Ajmir to Agra, a distance of 240 
miles, in a day and a night, and even if (with some 
authorities) we double the time, it is still wonderful 
travelling, and one is not surprised to read that he 
often knocked up his horses when pushing on night 
and day at break-neck speed. He liked to see a 
good fight, too, and one day at Thanesar he chanced 
upon a curious spectacle. It was the annual festival, 
and there was a vast crowd beside the sacred lake; 
the holy men were gathering a rich harvest in char- 
ity, when the customary struggle arose between two 
sects of fanatics for the possession of the bathing 
place. They came to the emperor and begged to 
be allowed to fight it out according to their habit. 
He consented, and allowed some of his soldiers to 
smear their bodies with ashes and go in to sup- 
port the weaker side. There w^as a splendid fight ; 
many were killed, we are told ; and ' the emperor 
greatly enjoyed the sight.' 

On a campaign Akbar was indefatigable. In one 
of his pursuits of Ali Kuli Khan-zaman, an Uzbeg 
officer who repeatedly revolted in the name of 
Akbar's jealous brother Hakim, and was as often 
pardoned by his too-forgiving sovereign, he pushed 
on so rapidly that of his army only 500 men and 
elephants succeeded in being in at the finish. In 
spite of his reduced force Akbar rode straight for 
the enemy, and took his own share of the fighting. 
*As the battle grew hot, the emperor alighted from 
his elephant, Balsundar, and mounted a horse. 
Then he gave orders for the elephants to be driven 



AKBAR IN BATTLE 249 

against the lines of Ali Kuli Khan. There was 
among them an elephant named Hiranand, and 
when he approached the ranks of the enemy they 
let loose against him an elephant called Diyana; 
but Hiranand gave him such a butt that he fell upon 
the spoto Ali Kuli received a wound from an 
arrow, and while he was drawing it out another 
struck his horse. The animal became restive and Ali 
Kuli was thrown. An elephant named Narsing now 
came up and was about to crush him, when Ali 
Kuli cried out to the driver, " I am a great man; 
if you take me ahve to the emperor he will reward 
you." The driver paid no heed to his words but 
drove the animal over him and crushed him undef 
foot.' Many prisoners were cast to the elephants to 
be trampled to death, a common mode of execution 
in India, in which Akbar showed no scruple. After 
refusing, in his chivalrous way, to attack an un- 
prepared enemy till the trumpets had announced 
his approach, he had no qualms about making a 
pyramid of two thousand rebels' heads after the 
fashion of his ancestor Timur. He could be terribly 
stern, and was subject to paroxysms of rage, in one 
of which he threw a servant from the battlements 
for falling asleep in the palace ; but his natural in- 
clination was ever towards mercy, and his forgive- 
ness often cost him dear. 

As an example of personal courage his attack on 
his rebellious cousins, the Mirzas, at Surat in 1572 
may be instanced. Pressing on at his usual speed 
he found himself on the bank of the Mahindri river 
in face of the enemy, with only forty men to his 



250 MEDIAL VAL INDIA 

back. Sixty more soon joined him, and with this 
handful he forthwith swam the river, stormed the 
town, and rushing through discovered the enemy 
in a plain on the other side. The emperor's force 
was outmatched by ten to one, and the fighting was 
desperate. ' The royai forces were in a narrow 
place, hedged in with thorns, where three horsemen 
could not pass abreast. The emperor with much 
courage was at the front, with Raja Bhagwan Das 
beside him. Three of the enemy's horsemen now 
charged them. One attacked the raja, who hurled 
his spear at him and wounded him as he was en- 
tangled in the thorns, so that he fled ; the other two 
attacked his majesty, who received them so stoutly 
that they were forced to make ojff.' Two officers 
now joined Akbar, who, refusing their escort, sent 
them after his assailants ; and the little force, roused 
by their emperor's danger, utterly routed the enemy. 
The courage of Akbar had put every man on his 
mettle, and the victors returned to Baroda the 
heroes of the hour. In the campaign of 1572-3 
Akbar not only retook Ahmadabad and entered 
Cambay and Baroda, but captured the strong fort 
of Surat, which had been built with extraordinary 
care and skill to keep out the Portuguese, and con- 
tained mortars bearing the name of Suleyman the 
Great of Turkey. When Akbar took the fort of 
Junagarh in Kathiawar in 1591 he found there a 
gun of the same sultan, whose fleet had vainly at- 
tacked the coast castles and was forced to abandon 
the guns. 

The presence of the Raja Bhagwan Das at Akbar*s 



ALLIANCE WITH RAJPUTS 25 1 

side in the skirmish just described is significant. If 
he had not been altogether successful in managing 
his Mohammedan followers — a turbulent body of 
adventurers — the emperor more than redeemed his 
over-indulgence to rebellious Muslims by his wise 
conciliation of Hindus. It may be that the very 
truculence and insubordination which he found so 
hard to check among his Turkish of^cers threw him 
perforce into the arms of the Rajputs; for we can 
hardly believe that a mere lad, brought up in an 
atmosphere of despotic rule, could as yet have 
imagined the ideal of a government resting upon 
the loyalty of the native population. As early as 
1562 Bhagwan's father, Raja Bihari Mai, the lord of 
Amber and ancestor of the present maharajas of 
Jaipur, had come to pay his homage to the new 
sovereign. ' He was received with great honour and 
consideration, and his daughter, an honourable lady, 
was accepted by his majesty, and took her place 
among the ladies of the court.' ^ Akbar had already 
married his cousins Rukayya and Salima, but this 
union with a Rajput princess marked a new policy. 
Her father was decorated with the highest rank of 
the official aristocracy, as a mansabdar or general 
of 5000 horse, and the bride, freely exercising the 
rites of her own faith and performing the usual 
Hindu sacrifices, encouraged her husband's tendency 
towards rehgious toleration. Later on he took 
other women, Hindu, Persian, Moghul, and even an 

1 Tabakat-i-Akbari, E. and D. , v. , 274. This history by the contem- 
porary writer Nizam-ad-din, who was often in Akbar's suite, is one 
of our best authorities for the greater part of the reign. 



252 MEDIAiVAL INDIA 

Armenian, until his harim formed a parliament of 
religions, though no rumour of their probable debates 
ever reached the outside world. Abu-1-Fazl says 
there were more than five thousand women, in 
various capacities, in the harim, and sagely remarks 
that * the large number of women — a vexatious ques- 
tion even for great statesmen — furnished his majesty 
with an opportunity to display his wisdom/ 

An almost immediate result of this alliance with 
the Rajput princess was the abolition (in 1562) 
of the jizya or poll-tax which Mohammedan con- 
querors levied upon unbelievers in accordance with 
the law of Islam. His next act was to discontinue 
the tax upon Hindu pilgrims, on the ground that, 
however superstitious the rites of pilgrimage might 
be, it was wrong to place any obstacle in the way 
of a man's service to God. No more popular 
measures could have been enacted. The jizya was 
an insult as well as a burden, and both taxes bore 
heavily on the poor and were bitterly resented. It 
was the re-imposition of the tax on religion in the 
time of Aurangzib that, more than anything else, 
uprooted the wise system established by his an- 
cestor. But whilst conciliating the Hindus by just 
and equal government, Akbar did not hesitate to 
interfere with some of their most cherished practices 
when they offended his sense of humanity. He 
forbade child-marriage, trial by ordeal, animal sacri- 
fice; he permitted widows to marry again, and set 
his face resolutely against the burning of widows on 
their husband's pyres: wholly to abolish suttee v^d,'=> 
beyond his power, but he ordained that the sacrifice 



HINDU REFORMS 



253 



must be voluntary, and he took personal pains to 
see that no compulsion should be used. He also 
insisted that 'the consent of the bride and bride- 
groom and the permission of the parents are abso- 
lutely necessary in marriage contracts' — a new 




AGRA GATE, FATHPUR-SIKRI. 



idea in a country where girls were married without 
option. 

Akbar was too shrewd a man to suppose that the 
hereditary pride of the Rajputs was to be conquered 
merely by kind words and mild measures. He knew 
that often the best way to make friends with a man 



254 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

is to knock him down. Udai Singh, the great rana 
of Mewar (son of Sanga, Babar's adversary), left him 
in no doubt as to his hostiUty. He sheltered Baz 
Bahadur when driven out of Malwa by the imperial 
army, and when other rajas came in and tendered 
their allegiance to the Moghul, Udai Singh stood 
aloof, apparently secure in his rocky fortresses and 
numerous array of troops and elephants. Akbar, 
he thought, could never take his strong castle of 
Chitor, standing on an isolated crag, four hundred 
feet high, and with almost perpendicular sides to- 
wards the top. The summit was occupied by an 
immense fortress, well supplied with provisions, 
wells, and water-tanks, and garrisoned by 8000 
veterans of the Rajput race under a famous leader, 
Jai Mai, the rana himself having prudently retreated 
to the Aravali hills on Akbar's approach in 1567. 
Mulla Ahmad described Chitor in Akbar's time ' : 
' The castle is situated in the midst of a level plain 
which has no other hills. The mountain is twelve 
miles round at the base, and nearly six at the sum- 
mit. On the east and north it is faced with hard 
stone, and the garrison had no fears on those sides, 
nor could guns, swivels, stone-slings or mangonels do 
much damage on the other sides, if they managed 
to reach them. Travellers do not mention any 
fortress hke this in all the world. The whole sum- 
mit was crowded with buildings, some several 
storeys high, and the battlements were strongly 
guarded and the magazines full.' The garrison 
laughed at the slender forces — 3000 or 4000 — which 

' Tarikh-i-Alfi, E. and D., v, 170-4. 



SIEGE OF CHI TOR 255 

the emperor had brought against a fortress twelve 
miles in girth, and well they might. 

They had to deal with a skilful engineer, however, 
and Akbar made his dispositions with great care. 
Batteries were set up all around the fort, and a strict 
blockade was established. Meanwhile generals were 
sent to seize Rampur and Udaipur and lay the sur- 
rounding country waste. ' From day to day,' says 
Mulla Ahmad, 'the gallant assailants brought their 
attacks closer to the fort on every side, though many 
fell under the resolute fire of the defenders. Orders 
were given for digging trenches and making sabats, 
and nearly 5000 builders, carpenters, masons, smiths, 
and sappers were mustered from all parts. Sabats 
are contrivances peculiar to Hindustan, for the 
strong forts of that land are full of guns, muskets, 
and defensive machines, and can only be taken by 
this means. A sabat is a broad covered way, under 
the shelter of which the besiegers approach a fortress 
protected from gun and musket fire. Two sabats 
were accordingly begun ; one, opposite the royal 
quarters, was so broad and high that two elephants 
and two horses could easily pass abreast, with raised 
spears. The sabats were begun from the brow of 
the hill {i. e. half-way up, below the perpendicular 
scarp), which is a fortress upon a fortress.' Seven or 
eight thousand horsemen and gunners strove to stop 
the work, and in spite of the bull-hide roofs over the 
labourers a hundred or so were killed every day, and 
their corpses were used as building materials. There 
was no forced labour, by Akbar's order, but the vol- 
unteers were stimulated by showers of money. Soon 



256 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

one of the sabats overtopped the wall of the castle, 
and on the roof of it a gallery was made whence the 
emperor could watch the fight. 

Meanwhile the sappers had not been idle. Two 
bastions were mined with gunpowder, and a storm- 
ing party was drawn up. The first mine blew a bas- 
tion into the air, and the stormers rushed into the 
breach, shouting their war-cry, and were at once at 
hand-grip with the garrison. At that moment the 
second mine, owing to a miscalculation, exploded 
and sent the struggling crowd in the breach in frag- 
ments into the air. The charge was so heavy that 
stones and corpses were hurled ' miles ' away, accord- 
ing to the historian, and the royal army was half 
blinded by the dust and smoke and hail of stones 
and bodies. 

The first approach had failed : Akbar now ordered 
the other sabat to be pushed forward. He was more 
resolved than ever to take the fort by storm ' so that 
in future no other fortress should dare to withstand 
him.' He took up his position in the gallery on the 
top of the sabat, as before, armed with his musket, 
' deadly as the darts of fate, with which he killed 
every moving thing that caught his eye.' At last 
the walls were breached, and the assault was ordered. 
Jai Mai, the commandant, ' an infidel yet valiant,' 
struggled bravely in every part and all day long, 
encouraging his men to beat off the enemy. At the 
hour of evening prayer he came in front of the royal 
battery, where Akbar sat discharging his gun ' San- 
gram ' as often as light flashed forth in the bastion. 
Jai Mai happened to be standing in the tower heart- 



STORMING OF CHI TOR 257 

ening his men just when a blaze of Hght revealed his 
face to Akbar, who fired and killed him on the spot. 
Then the garrison gave up hope, and after burning 
the body of their leader, they performed their dismal 
rite oijauhar, — burned all their families and goods 
in huge bonfires, and then rushed upon death. The 
besiegers saw the flare of the pyres, and poured 
through the breaches, whilst Akbar looked on from 
the top of the sabat. Three elephants he sent into 
the castle to aid in the general massacre of the de- 
voted garrison. The Rajputs fought every step ; 
each lane and street and bazar was sternly disputed ; 
they fought up to the very temple. Two thousand 
were killed by midday ; the total death-roll of the 
Hindus was at least 8000 men, besides their families ; 
the rest were made prisoners/ The heroism of the 
defence was long commemorated in popular tradition 
by the two statues, supposed to represent Jai Mai 
and his brother, mounted on stone elephants, which 
flanked the gate of the fortress at Delhi. * These 
two elephants,' says Bernier, ' mounted by the two 
heroes, have an air of grandeur and inspire me with 
an awe and respect which I cannot describe.' 

The fall of Chitor, followed by two other famous 
fortresses, Rantambhor and Kalinjar, a few months 
later, secured the allegiance of the Rajputs. The 
rajas agreed to acclaim a power which they found as 
irresistible as it was just and tolerant. Akbar 
cemented the good feeling by marrying another 

^ This account is practically identical in the Tarikh-i-Alfi and the 
Tabakat-i-Akbari; the author of the latter work was present in one 
of the batteries. 
17 



258 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

princess, daughter of the raja of Bikanir, and hence- 
forward he could rely on the loyalty of the most 
splendid soldiery in India. ^ In his future campaigns, 
as in those of his son and grandson, there were 
always brave Hindus to the fore, and the names of 
Bhagwan Das, Man Singh, and Todar Mai are 
famous in the annals of Moghul warfare and admin- 
istration. Bhagwan Das and Man Singh not only 
distinguished themselves in the wearisome and re- 
iterated campaigns which the unsettled state of 
Gujarat compelled Akbar to undertake for a space of 
twenty years, but were even trusted by him in 1578 
to wage war upon the ever hostile rana of Udaipur, 
Rajput against Rajput. They justified his confi- 
dence, drove the rana to the Indus, and captured 
his strongholds of Goganda and Kunbhalmir. 

^ The rana of Udaipur, however, though he had lost Chitor, re- 
tained his pride. He never submitted ; and his family, alone among 
the Rajput princely houses, for ever disdained to marry its daughters 
with the Great Moghuls. The present lord of Udaipur still boasts 
unpolluted Rajput blood. 







^ 



CHAPTER XI 



AKBAR'S REFORMS 



THE DIVINE FAITH 



I 566-1605 



THIS assimilation of the Hindu chiefs was the most 
conspicuous feature of Akbar's reign. His wars 
were like other Indian wars, only mitigated by his 
sovereign quality of mercy to those who submitted, 
and his scrupulous care that the peasants should not 
suffer by the pa:,sage of his troops. The empire 
was gradually extended till it stretched from Kanda- 
har to the bay of Bengal, and included the whole of 
Hindustan down to the Narbada. But the remark- 
able points about this expansion to the old limits of 
Ala-ad-din's realm were, first, that it was done with 
the willing help of the Hindu princes, and, secondly, 
that expansion went hand in hand with orderly ad- 
ministration. This was a new thing in Indian govern- 
ment, for hitherto the local officials had done pretty 
much as it pleased them, and the central authority 
had seldom interfered so long as the revenue did 
not suffer. Akbar allowed no oppression — if he 

259 



26o 



MEDIEVAL INDIA 



knew of it — by his lieutenants, and not a few of his 
campaigns were undertaken mainty for the purpose 
of punishing governors who had been guilty of self- 
seeking and peculation. Much of the improvement 
was due to his employment of Hindus, who at that 




THE DIWAN-I-KHAS, FATMPUR-SIKRI. 



time were better men of business than the unedu- 
cated and mercenary adventurers who formed a large 
proportion of the Mohammedan invaders. 

No Muslim served Akbar more zealously or with 
further reaching results than the great financier. Raja 
Todar Mai, a Khatri Rajput, who had served in his 



TODAR MAL 261 

youth under the able administration of Sher Shah, 
and had thus gained priceless experience in the man- 
agement of lands and revenues. He assisted Akbar's 
first chancellor of the exchequer, Muzaffar Khan, in 
settling the newly acquired kingdom, and in 1566 
took a leading part in suppressing the revolt of Ali 
Kuli. It was the first time, in Moghul rule, that a 
Hindu had been sent against a Muslim enemy, and 
his employment was doubtless due to Akbar's suspi- 
cion that the Mohammedan generals might act in 
collusion with their old comrade, the rebel. After 
this he was employed in settling the revenue system 
of Gujarat, and then again took military command 
in the conquest of Bengal in 1574-7 and its reduc- 
tion in 1 581, when he distinguished himself by his 
firm courage. He was rewarded soon afterwards 
with the office of vezir ; and in 1 582 he became chief 
finance minister, and introduced the famous reforms 
and the new assessment known as Todar Mai's rent- 
roll, the Domesday Book of the Moghul empire. 
He died in 1589. 'Careful to keep himself from 
selfish ambition,' writes Abu-1-Fazl, * he devoted him- 
self to the service of the state, and earned an 
everlasting fame.' 

There is no name in mediaeval history more re- 
nowned in India to the present day than that of 
Todar Mai, and the reason is that nothing in Akbar's 
reforms more nearly touched the welfare of the peo- 
ple than the great financier's reconstruction of the 
revenue system. The land-tax was always the main 
source of revenue in India, and it had become 
almost the sole universal burden since Akbar had 



262 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

abolished not only the poll-tax and pilgrims' dues 
but over fifty minor duties/ The object was now to 
levy a fair rent on the land, which should support 
the administration without unduly burdening the 
cultivators. An able modern Indian administrator 
thus describes the system." 'The basis of the land- 
revenue was the recognition that the agriculturist 
was the owner of the soil, the state being entitled to 
the surplus produce. Sometimes an official or a 
court favourite obtains an alienation of the state's 
demands on a township or gr9up of townships ; but 
the grant, even if declared to be perpetual, is usually 
treated as temporary, in the sense that it is liable to 
be resumed at the death of the grantee or at the de- 
mise of the crown. That being the normal concep- 
tion in systems like that of the Muslims in Hindustan, 
the agriculturists — especially if they were Hindus — 
were taillables et corveables a merci. It was Sher 
Shah who, first among these rulers, perceived the 
benefit that might be expected from leaving a defi- 
nite marein between the state's demand and the 



t>' 



^ The increasing land revenue of the Moghul emperors is shown in 
the following table : 

Akbar 1594 ;i^i 8,650,000 

" 1605 19,430,000 

Jahangir 162S 19,680,000 

Shah-Jahan 1648 24,750,000 

1655 30,000,000 

Aurangzib 1667 30,850,000 

" 1697 43,500,000 

(See my remarks in Sir W. W. Hunter's Indian Empire^ 3d ed., 
354-356.) 

'^ H. G. Keenr, Sketch of the History of Hindustan, 160-162, etc. 



TODAR MAL'S SETTLEMENT 263 

expenses of cultivation. The determination of this 
margin, and the recognition of the person who should 
be secured in its enjoyment, formed the basis of the 
system which, under the name of *' settlement/' still 
prevails in most parts of India. 

* A fixed standard of mensuration having been 
adopted, the land was surveyed. It was then classi- 
fied, according as it was waste, fallow, or under crop. 
The last class was taken as the basis of assessment, 
that which produced cereals, vetches, or oil-seeds be- 
ing assessed to pay one-third of the average gross 
produce to the state, the other two-thirds being left 
to the cultivators. . . . This was a complete 
departure from the law of Islam, for it made no dif- 
ference between the revenue raised from Muslims 
and that raised from unbelievers. Sher Shah's de- 
mand was in no case to be exceeded. It is very 
noticeable that Akbar added to his policy of union 
the equally important policy of continuity of sys- 
tem. He aimed at securing to the peasant the 
power of enjoying his property and profiting by the 
fruit of his labours. The needy husbandman was 
furnished with advances, repayable on easy terms. 
The assessments when once made were assessed for 
nineteen years; and after the 24th year of the reign, 
the aggregate collections of the past ten years having 
been added together and divided by ten, the future 
collections were made on the basis of this decennial 
average. 

* Care was taken to provide easy means of com- 
plaint when undue collections were exacted and to 
punish severely the guilty exactors. The number of 



264 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

minor officials employed in realizing the recorded 
dues was diminished by one-half. The cultivators 
were to be made responsible, jointly as well as sev- 
erally ; the cultivators of fallow land were to be 
favoured for two years; advances of seed and money 
were to be made when necessary, arrears being 
remitted in the case of small holdings. Collectors 
were to make yearly reports on the conduct of their 
subordinates. Monthly returns were to be trans- 
mitted to the imperial exchequer. Special reports 
were to be sent up of any special calamities, hail, 
flood, or drought. The collectors were to see that 
the farmers got receipts for their payments, which 
were to be remitted four times in the year; at the 
end of that period no balance should be outstanding. 
Payments were if possible to be voluntary, but the 
standing crops were theoretically hypothecated, and 
where needful were to be attached. Above all, there 
was to be an accurate and minute record of each 
man's holding and liabilities. The very successful 
land-revenue system of British India is little more 
than a modification of these principles.' 

One special feature of Todar Mai's system was 
the enactment that all government accounts should 
be kept in Persian instead of in Hindi, as heretofore. 
* He thus forced his co-religionists to learn the court 
language of their rulers — a circumstance that may 
be compared with the introduction of the English 
language in the courts of India. The study of 
Persian therefore became necessary for its pecuniary 
advantage. Todar Mai's order, and Akbar's gener- 
ous policy of allowing Hindus to compete for the 



STATUS OF HINDUS 



265 



highest honours, — Man Singh was the first ''Com- 
mander of 7000," — explain two facts: first, that 




THE CENTRAL COLUMN IN THE DIWAN-I-KHAS, FATHPUR-SIKRI. 

before the end of the i8th century the Hindus had 
ahnost become the Persian teachers of the Moham- 
medans ; secondly, that a new dialect could arise in 



266 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Upper India, the Urdu, which, without the Hindus 
as receiving medium, could never have been called 
into existence. Whether we attach more import- 
ance to Todar Mai's order or to Akbar's policy, 
which when once initiated his successors, willing or 
not, had to follow, one fact should be borne in mind, — 
that before the time of Akbar the Hindus as a rule 
did not study Persian and stood therefore politi- 
cally below their Mohammedan rulers.' ' 

Such changes, which put the subdued Hindu 
absolutely on a level with the conquering Muslim, 
w^ere naturally repugnant to Akbar's more bigoted 
followers. The contemporary historian Badauni 
writes bitterly on the subject, and his cynicism is a 
useful corrective to the enthusiastic panegyrics of 
other writers of the time. Yet even when he 
wishes to make things appear in the worst light, he 
really shows the excellence of the intentions, at 
least, of the new measures, whilst exposing some of 
their defects. For instance, referring to one of the 
early attempts at land assessment, in 1 574, he 
says ^ : 

* In this year an order was promulgated for im- 
proving the cultivation of the country and for 
bettering the condition of the rayats (peasants). 
All the parganas (fiscal unions) of the country, 
whether dry or irrigated, in towns or hills, deserts 
or jungles, by rivers or reservoirs or wells, were to 
be measured, and every piece of land large enough 
to produce when cultivated one cror of tankas was 

^ H. Blochmann, Ain-i-Akbari, i, 352. 
2 Badauni, ii, 189; E. and D., v, 513-516. 



LAND SURVEY 26/ 

to be divided off and placed under the charge of an 
ofificer called the crori^ selected for his trustworthi- 
ness and without regard to his acquaintance with 
the revenue ofificials : so that in three years' time all 
the uncultivated land might be brought under crops, 
and the treasury be replenished. The measurement 
was begun near Fathpur, and one cror was named 
Adampur, another Sethpur, and so on after prophets 
and patriarchs. Rules were laid down, but were not 
properly observed, and much of the land was laid 
waste through the rapacity of the croris ; the peas- 
ants' wives and children were sold and dispersed, 
and everything went to confusion. But the croris 
were brought to account by Raja Todar Mai, and 
many pious men died from severe beatings and the 
torture of rack and pincers. Indeed so many died 
after long imprisonment by the revenue of^cers that 
the executioner or headsman was forestalled.' 

All this is intended by the writer to cast ridicule 
on the reforms, but it really shows that they were 
good and moreover were strictly enforced. The 
same cynic can see no advantage in Akbar's system 
of territorial commands. The Moghul ofificers — 
Hindus and Muslims — were spread over the land, and 
the state taxes were granted to them in certain dis- 
tricts — except the Khalisa or exchequer lands — in re- 
turn for military service. They had to bring a fixed 
number of men-at-arms, horses, and elephants, into 
the field, and were rated, according to the number 
they brought, as mansabdars of ten, twenty, a hund- 
red, a thousand, etc. It was no invention of Ak- 
bar's, for we have seen it at work in much earlier 



268 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

times, and of course it was liable to abuse, though 
Akbar did much to remove the old dangers and cor- 
ruptions of the system. Badauni said that the 
laziness, licence, extravagance, and greed of the man- 
sabdars ate up all the grant, and no money was left 
to pay the soldiers, so the amirs dressed up their 
grooms and servants as men-at-arms and passed them 
off at the muster, and then sent them back to their 
duties. 'The treasure, tax-gathering, and expendi- 
ture of the mansabdars remained unchanged, but in 
every way dirt fell into the plate of the poor soldier, 
and he could not gird up his loins. Weavers, cot- 
ton-dressers, carpenters, and Hindu and Muslim 
chandlers would hire a charger, bring it to the mus- 
ter, obtain a mansab [or order on the land-revenue], 
and become a crori, trooper, or substitute for some- 
one : a few days later not a trace would be found of 
the hired horse, and they became footmen again. 
. . . This sort of trade was carried on to a great 
extent [and Akbar knew it] ; nevertheless the em- 
peror's good luck was such that his foes were every- 
where crushed, and soldiers were not so much 
wanted.' As the enemies could not be crushed 
without soldiers, the system, though abused, appears 
to have answered its purpose. 

There were doubtless many imperfections and 
many cases of malversation in spite of Akbar's 
efforts; but this is only to say that the best system 
in the world is open to abuse, especially in an orien- 
tal country where to cheat the government is a 
virtue and to grind the faces of the poor a venial 
fault. The real reason that Badauni is so severe 



SUFI INFLUENCES 269 

upon these reforms is that they were but a part of a 
general tendency to lax views on the part of the 
emperor. It was not merely in his just and equable 
treatment of the Hindus that Akbar showed his 
broad and open mind. There were other influences 
at work besides those of his Hindu wives and friends, 
and they all made for what the orthodox Badauni 
denounced as latitudinarian. A king who was con- 
stitutionally unable to see why a Hindu should pay 
more taxes than a Muslim was also liable to equally 
deplorable liberality in matters of faith, and Akbar 
had been deeply moved by the mystical doctrines of 
the Persian Sufis as revealed to him by two brilliant 
brothers. From the time when Faizi, the mystic poet, 
joined the emperor's suite at the siege of Chitor in 
1568, and still more when seven years later he intro- 
duced his young brother, the gentle and enthusiastic 
scholar Abu-1-Fazl, Akbar's mind had been unsettled 
in religion. He was essentially eclectic, and saw good 
in almost every form of worship. From his youth he 
had delighted in the conversation of scholars and 
philosophers and shown the greatest deference to 
real learning ; he had books read aloud to him daily 
from his rich library, and would go through them 
again and again ; and now under the influence of the 
speculative mind of Abu-1-Fazl, — a man of wide 
culture and pure spiritual ideals, who recognized his 
hero in his king, and devoted himself to him with his 
whole heart, — he began to encourage debates on 
doctrinal and philosophical questions and displayed 
an eager curiosity in the discussions. 

These debates took place in a hall called the 



270 



MEDIEVAL INDIA 



Hall of Worship (Ibadat-Khana,— supposed to be 
identical with that now known as the Diwan-i-Khas) 
founded in 1574 at the city of Fathpur, which had 
become the emperor's favourite residence/ The city 
itself was the offspring of faith. Akbar, at least in 




THE GREAT GATEWAY, BALAND DARWAZA, FATHPUR-SIKRI. 



the earlier part of his reign, was a devout visitor of 
holy places, and frequented the tombs of Muslim 
saints. We read again and again how he made 

^ He had already built the famous Red Fort at Agra, where the 
court had usually resided. Later, Delhi and Lahore also became 
favourite cities where Akbar often held his court. 



FATHPUR-SIKRI 2/1 

solemn pilgrimages to famous shrines ; and one of 
his objects was to secure an heir, for up to the four- 
teenth year of his reign none of the sons born to him 
had lived. He repaired to a holy man dwelling in a 
cave at the village of Sikri, not far from Agra ; the her- 
mit promised him a son ; and Akbar placed his wife, 
the princess of Amber, under the care of the saint till 
her time should be accomplished. Sikri, as well as 
its local prophet, waxed rich and populous by the 
numerous visits of the anxious king. Palaces began 
to rise (1569), and the prophet, Salim Chishti, set up 
a new monastery and a noble mosque. The aristo- 
crats built them mansions near the palace. Sikri 
knew itself no more, and its name was changed 
to Fathpur, 'the town of victory.' Happily the 
seer was justified in the event, and Akbar's son, 
named after the holy man Salim, but better 
Jcnown afterwards as the emperor Jahangir, was 
safely ushered into the world. Fathpur derived 
fresh lustre from this auspicious event, and Akbar 
lavished all the taste and art of the age upon its 
adornment. 

Nothing sadder or more beautiful exists in India 
than this deserted city — the silent witness of a van- 
ished dream. It still stands, with its circuit of 
seven miles, its seven bastioned gates, its wonderful 
palaces, peerless in all India for noble design and 
delicate adornment; its splendid mosque and pure 
marble shrine of the hermit saint ; its carvings 
and paintings — stands as it stood in Akbar's time, 
but now a body without a soul. Reared with infin- 
ite thought and curious care, it was deserted fourteen 



2/2 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

years later. When William Finch visited it five 
years after its founder's death he found it ' ruinate, 
lying like a waste district, and very dangerous to 
pass through at night.* Ruinate it has remained 
ever since, desolate and abandoned. No* later ruler 
of India has ever aspired to dwell in Akbar's Ver- 
sailles, just as none ever rose to the height of 
Akbar's ideals. In the empty palaces, the glorious 
mosque, the pure white tomb, the baths, the lake, at 
every turn we recognize some memory of the great- 
est of Indian emperors. We may even enter his 
bedroom, the Khwabgah or 'home of dreams,' and 
see the very screens of beautiful stone tracery, 
the same Persian couplets, the identic ornament 
in gold and ultramarine on which Akbar feasted his 
eyes in the long sultry afternoons of the Indian 
plains. We may walk into the houses of Faizi and 
Abu-1-Fazl, the laureate and the premier of hi§ 
empire, who sang his glory and chronicled his reign. 
We may stand in the audience hall, with its pillar 
throne and galleries, where the keenest dialectic 
of Muslim schoolmen. Catholic priests. Pantheists, 
Firevvorshippers, Brahmans, and Buddhists, rose in 
heated battle for their creeds, till quarrels and coarse 
vituperation called up the bitter sneer of the puri- 
tanic Badauni and the regretful contempt of the 
royal seeker after truth. 

Fathpur, with its beauty in desolation, has stirred 
the poet's vision of a Heber, and compelled the 
homage of the wisest critic of Indian art. Fergus- 
son wrote of the ' Turkish Sultana's House,' which 
still overlooks the Pachisi Court, where Akbar is 



CHRISTIAN ART 273 

said to have played his games of Hving chess with 
slave-girls as pieces moving on the chequered pave- 
ment, that nothing can be conceived so picturesque 
in outline, so richly and marvellously carved, without 
one touch of extravagance or false taste. The five- 
storeyed Panch Mahall, a kind of Buddhist Vihara, 
and the house of Akbar's witty Hindu favourite. Raja 
Birbal, have their individual charm ; and the frescoes 
in ' Miraim's Kothi ' are curious documents in the 
history of Indian painting, of which we obtain some 
glimpses in the albums of Moghul portraits, drawn 
by artists of the Panjab, now preserved in the Brit- 
ish Museum and a few private collections. The 
presence of Jesuit Fathers at Agra, attracted by the 
benevolent Catholicism of Akbar, accounts for some 
of the characteristics of these curious paintings.' 
Aureoles and angels appear ; a little later we find the 
Blessed Virgin represented in a kiosk of Jahangir; 
and scenes of Christian hagiography were favourite 
subjects with Moghul artists. The Annunciation is 

^ ' In 986 (1578) the missionaries of Europe, who are called Padres, 

and whose chief pontiff called Papa promulgates his interpretations 

for the use of the people, and who issues mandates that even kings 

dare not disobey, brought their Gospel to the emperor's notice, 

advanced proofs of the Trinity, and affirmed the truth and spread 

abroad the knowledge of the religion of Jesus, The emperor 

ordered Prince Murad to learn a few lessons from the Gospel and 

to treat it with all due respect, and Shaikh Abu-1-Fazl was ordered 

to translate it. Instead of the prefatory Bismillah, the following 

ejaculation was enjoined: "O thou whose name is Jesus Christ."' 

— Badauni, ii, 260, but he translates Ay natn-i-ivay Zhezhu Ki) isiii 

(which is obscurely written) as ' O thou whose name is merciful and 

bountiful' : E. and D., v, 529 ; Ain, i, 183, where the better form 

Ay tiam-i-tu Dezuz Kiristo ( from the Dalnsfaii) is given. 
18 



274 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

believed to be depicted in a fresco at Fathpur-Sikri, 
whilst another strongly resembles the fall of Adam. 
There are even traces of the work of Chinese artists 
in the Buddhist paintings in the ' Home of Dreams.' 
Indeed this Indian Pompeii, with its unique and never 
iterative designs, is a museum of exquisite aes- 
thetic genius.' Akbar's views on art were character- 
istic. One day he remarked to some friends : ' There 
are many that hate painting, but such men I dislike. 
It appears to me as if a painter had quite peculiar 
means of recognizing God ; for a painter, in sketching 
anything that has life, and in devising its limbs one 
after the other, must come to feel that he cannot be- 
stow personality upon his work, and is thus forced 
to think of God, the giver of life, and will thus 
increase in knowledge.' ^ He had always been fond 
of painting, and kept a number of painters at court, 
whose work was displayed before him every week. 
'Hence the art flourishes,' says Abu-1-Fazl, 'and 
many painters have obtained great reputations . 

and masterpieces worthy of [the famous Per- 
sian court painter] Bihzad may be placed at the side 
of the wonderful works of the European painters 
who have attained world-wide fame. The minuteness 
in detail, the general finish, the boldness of exe- 
cution, etc., now observed in pictures, are incompar- 
ble.' This was written in Akbar's lifetime, and it 
is noteworthy that the historian distinguishes the 

' It has been admirably surveyed, described, and illustrated, by 
Mr. E. W. Smith, of the Archseological Survey of India: The 
Moghul Architecture of Fathptir-Sikri, 4 vols., 1894 fl. 

'^ Ain, i, 107, 108. 



THE DIVINE FAITH 2/5 

Hindu painters as the best among the hundred fam- 
ous masters of the age, though he mentions some 
great artists from Persia. 

In this fairy city Akbar's dream of a universal 
reHgion grew into definite shape. It was in the 
Hall of Worship that he sought wearily to elicit 
truth from the debates of professors. * The unity 
that had existed among the learned disappeared 
in the very beginning ; abuse took the place of argu- 
ment, and the plainest. rules of etiquette were, even 
in the presence of the emperor, forgotten. Akbar's 
doubts instead of being cleared up only increased ; 
certain points of the Hanafi law, to which most Sun- 
nis cling, were found to be better established by the 
dicta of lawyers belonging to the other three sects; 
and the moral character of the Prophet was next 
scrutinized and found wanting. Makhdum-al-mulk 
[the head of the ultra-bigoted orthodox party] wrote 
a spiteful pamphlet against Shaikh Abd-an-Nabi, 
the Sadr [or chancellor] of the empire, and the latter 
retorted by calling Makhdum a fool and cursing 
him. Abu-l-P'azl, upon whom Akbar from the be- 
ginning had fixed as the leader of his party, fanned 
the quarrels by skilfully shifting the disputes from 
one point to another.' ^ The heated discussions of 
the learned men whom he gathered together on 
Thursday nights to defend the dogmas of their 
creeds only inspired him with compassion for the 
futility of their reasoning and contempt for the nar- 
rowness of their grasp. To Akbar's open eyes there 
was truth in all faiths, but no one creed could hold 
'Blochmann, Ain, i, p. xiii. 



THE DIVINE FAITH 277 

the master-key of the infinite. In Abu-l-Fazl's 
words, — 

O God, in every temple I see those who see thee, and in 

every tongue that is spoken, thou art praised. 
Polytheism and Islam grope after thee. 
Each religion says, 'Thou art one, without equal.' 
Be it mosque, men murmur holy prayer; or church, the 

bells ring, for love of thee. 
Awhile I frequent the Christian cloister, anon the mosque: 
But thee only I seek from fane to fane. 
Thine elect know naught of heresy or orthodoxy, whereof 

neither stands behind the screen of thy truth. 
Heresy to the heretic, — dogma to the orthodox, — 
But the dust of the rose-petal belongs to the heart of the 

perfume-seller. 

Tennyson has finely expressed Akbar's dream 
of a pure and universal faith : 

I can but lift the torch 
Of reason in the dusky cave of Life, 
And gaze on this great miracle, the World, 
Adoring That who made, and makes, and is, 
And is not, what I gaze on — all else Form, 
Ritual, varying with the tribes of men. 

It had taken many years to develop this new- 
religion of catholic comprehension. Akbar would 
often sit, in the first hour of dawn, on a stone in his 
palace court, watching the rising of the day-god and 
meditating on the mystery of life. He was passing 
through a stage of earnest doubt. He listened 
eagerly to the words of the Christian fathers, to the 



278 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Vedanta philosophy of ascetic yogis ; he had Sans- 
krit classics translated for him, and ordered a trans- 
lation of the Gospels ; he must have known the 
Buddhist doctrine and the profound metaphysic 
of India. Islam no longer satisfied him, though his 
instinctive devoutness still took him on pilgrimages 
to Muslim shrines, and as late as the twenty-first 
year of his reign he was contemplating a journey to 
Mekka. But Islam was too bounded for his ex- 
panding soul. The outward symbols went : the Mus- 
lim shibboleth vanished from the coinage, and the 
ambiguous formula * Allahu Akbar,* ' God is most 
great ' (or, as detractors construed it, ' Akbar is 
God '), took its place. When Muslims met, instead 
of the customary salam, they were to say 'Allahu 
Akbar,' and the reply, ' Jalla Jalaluh,' ' May his 
glory shine ! ' contained another suspicious reference 
to Akbar's surname Jalal-ad-din. Whilst plainly de- 
claring that he pretended to no divine incarnation, 
such as the Shi'a avow, the emperor assumed a 
wholly new position in relation to matters of faith. 
He found that the rigid Muslims of the court were 
always casting in his teeth some absolute authority, 
a book, a tradition, a decision of a canonical divine, 
and like Henry VIII he resolved to cut the ground 
from under them : he would himself be the head of 
the church, and there should be no pope in India but 
Akbar. 

His first assumption of the role of priest-king was 
unintentionally dramatic. Following the precedents 
of the caliphs of old, he stood before the people in 
the great mosque of Fathpur one Friday in 1580, 



IMPERIAL INFALLIBILITY 279 

and began to read the bidding prayer (khutbd), into 
which Faizi had introduced these Hnes : 



The Lord to me the Kingdom gave, 
He made me prudent, strong and brave, 
He guided me with right and ruth, 
Fining my heart with love of truth ; 
No tongue of man can sum His State — 
Allahu Akbar ! God is great.^ 

But the emotion of the scene, the sight of the 
multitude, the thought of his high office, were too 
much for him. Akbar faltered and broke down, and 
the court preacher had to finish the prayer. 

Soon afterwards Akbar promulgated a document 
unique in the history of the Mohammedan world. 
It was drawn up by the father of Faizi and Abu- 
1-Fazl, himself a Shi'a pantheist, and it was signed^ 
sorely against their will, by the orthodox divines and 
lawyers of the court. It set forth in unmistakable 
terms that the authority of the just king is higher 
than that of a Mujtahid (or sublime doctor of the 
faith), and therefore that, should a religious question 
come up regarding which the Mujtahids are at vari- 
ance, the emperor's decision should be binding on 
the Muslims of India, and any opposition to the im- 
perial decrees should involve the loss of goods and 
religion in this world and insure damnation in the 
world to come.' In other words Akbar's judgment 
was set above every legal and religious authority 

^ Mr. H. G. Keene's rendering. 

^ Badauni, ii, 272 ; Blochmann, Ain^ i, 186-187. 



28o MEDIEVAL INDIA 

except the plain letter of the Koran. It was a pro- 
mulgation of a doctrine of imperial infallibility. 

After thus breaking sharply with the principles of 
Mohammedan tradition, Akbar went as of old on 
pilgrimage to a saint's tomb. Badauni grimly smiled 
and said ' it was strange that his majesty should 
have such faith in the good man of Ajmir whilst 
rejecting the foundation of everything, our Prophet, 
from whose skirt hundreds of thousands of first-class 
saints had sprung.' With the same superstitious 
bent, oddly contrasting v/ith his philosophic theory, 
Akbar is said to have varied the colours of his 
clothes in accordance with the regent planet of the 
day, to have muttered spells at night to subdue the 
sun to his desires, prostrated himself publicly before 
the sun and the sacred fire, and made the whole 
court rise respectfully when the lamps were lighted. 
On the festival of the eighth day after the sun 
entered Virgo, the emperor came forth to the 
audience chamber with his brow marked in Hindu 
fashion and with jewelled strings tied by Brahmans 
on his wrist to represent the sacred thread. He 
was not above charms and sortileges. He studied 
alchemy as well as astronomy, and is reported to have 
exhibited the gold he had professedly transmuted, 
and he took boundless interest in the tricks and 
miracles of the Hindu ascetics or yogis, as well as 
of the Muslim fakirs. 

The truth is that Akbar was singularly sensitive 
to religious impressions of every kind, and that his 
new religion, the Din-i-Ilahi^ * divine faith,' an eclec- 
tic pantheism, contained elements taken from very 



SUN WORSHIP 



281 



diverse faiths. Whilst overthrowing most of the 
ceremonial rules, whether of Islam or of Hinduism, 
and making almost all things lawful save excess,' he 
took ideas from learned Brahmans as well as Portu- 
guese missionaries ; he adopted the worship of the 




darugha pershad's house, fathpur-sikri. 



sun, as the symbol of the Creator, and in gratitude 
for the blessings of light and fertilizing warmth ; 

^ For example wine was allowed to be publicly sold, but intoxi- 
cation was punished ; the women of the town were registered and 
limited to the quarter known as Shaitanpur or Devilsbury, where 
their commerce was legalized and taxed ; but the seduction of virgins 
was severely reprobated. 



282 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

and himself daily set the example of 'adoring Him 
the Timeless in the flame that measures Time'; 
he introduced the solar y&ds beginning at the vernal 
equinox as the starting point of his new Ilahi era; 
forbade cow eating, in deference to Indians, and 
had himself ceremonially weighed in Hindu fashion 
on both his solar and lunar birthday ; instituted the 
sacred fire adored of the Parsis, and encouraged the 
horn sacrifice of the Hindus in his palace. The new 
cult was cordially professed only by a small band of 
courtiers calling themselves 'the elect,' and includ- 
ing Faizi, Abu-1-Fazl, and other Persians, chiefly 
poets, and one Hindu, Birbal, but the rest even of the 
court remained indifferent when not hostile. Some 
boldly refused to join the new faith, but the most 
part temporized for fear of losing favour. Of course 
an eclectic religion never takes hold of a people, 
and Akbar's curiously interesting hotchpotch of 
philosophy, mysticism, and nature worship practi- 
cally died with him. But the broad-minded sym- 
pathy which inspired such a vision of catholicity 
left a lasting impress upon a land of warring creeds 
and tribes, and for a brief while created a nation 
where before there had been only factions. 

With the promulgation of the emperor's infalli- 
bility the debates in the Hall of Worship came to 
an end ; the leading bigots Makhdum and Abd- 
an-Nabi were sent to refresh their fanaticism at 
Mekka; and the pantheists under Abu-1-Fazl and 
his brother had their brief triumph. Both held high 
rank, but Faizi prized his office of poet laureate 
above any political power, whilst Abu-1-Fazl became 



THE MILLENNIUM 283 

Diwan or Treasurer of the Province of Delhi. 
These two brilliant and sympathetic brothers were 
now Akbar's chief intimates, and he found in their 
devotion more than compensation for the solitary- 
elevation that is the inevitable fate of a reforming 
sovereign born centuries before the acceptable time. 
Probably they encouraged him in the fancies and 
extravagances .which somewhat marred his later life. 
One of these fancies wa§ a belief that the religion 
of Islam would not survive its millennium, and that 
its collapse would be. accompanied by the advent of 
the Mahdi, the Lord of the Age, in whom Akbar 
was easily induced to recognize himself. He ordered 
a 'History of the Millennium' {Tarikh-i-Alfi) to be 
compiled by a company of scholars, including the 
reluctant Badauni, to put a seal, as it were, upon an 
extinct religion. The events of the thousand years 
of doorhed Islam were related from a Shi'a point of 
view, and to add to the confusion the chronology 
was reckoned from the death instead of from the 
flight (Hijra) of the Prophet. 

This was an example of Akbar's love of innova- 
tion, and it is impossible to deny that he was fond 
of experiment and novelty for their own sake. 'All 
good things must once have been new,' he remarked, 
and accordingly he tested the novel habit of smoking 
tobacco, which was first introduced in India in his 
reign : but soon he gave it up. As Dr. Holden said, 
*He experimented in all departments, from religion 
to metallurgy,* and some of his changes appear to 
be dictated by mere whim, or restless curiosity, 
rather than reason and judgment. His experimental 



284 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

spirit was displayed in the way he endeavoured to 
ascertain the natural religion of the untaught child. 
He separated a score of hapless babies from their 
mothers, and shut them up in a house where none 
might speak to them, in order to see what faith they 
would evolve. After three or four years the child- 
ren were let out, and they came forth — dumb! 
The emperor's experiments were not always wise. 

Nevertheless he had wise counsellors, and it was 
an age of great literary abounding. Faizi was one 
of the most exquisite poets India has ever produced, 
and Abu-l-Fazl's ' Book of Akbar' (Akbarnama, the 
third volume of which forms the celebrated Ain-i- 
Akbari or 'Acts of Akbar'), published in 1597, will 
always retain its fascination as a minute record of 
the customs and institutions of the greatest age of 
the Moghul empire. As one of its translators has 
said,^ * it crystallizes and records in brief for all time 
the state of Hindu learning, and, besides its statis- 
tical utility, serves as an admirable treatise of refer- 
ence on numerous branches of Brahmanical science 
and on the manners, beliefs, traditions, and indige- 
nous lore, which for the most part still retain and 
will long continue their hold on the popular mind. 
Above all as a register of the fiscal areas, the revenue 
settlements, and changes introduced at various 
periods, the harvest returns, valuations and imposts 
throughout the provinces of the empire, its origi- 
nality is as indisputable as its surpassing historical 
importance.' 

Whilst Akbar was busy in enlarging the bound- 

^ Col. H. S. Jarrett, Ain, \\\, p. vii. 



DECCAN CONQUESTS 28$ 

aries of faith, his material empire had not stood still. 
The conquests of Gujarat and Bengal, though re- 
quiring more than one repetition, had brought the 
empire to the normal limits of Hindustan. Kabul 
and the Afghan country, ruled by his disloyal brother 
Hakim, had repeatedly revolted ; Badakhshan was 
finally lost in 1585, and the merry Raja Birbal fell in 
a disastrous attempt to coerce the wild Yusufzais in 
1586. But after Hakim's death Kabul was pacified, 
and Kashmir annexed (1587) ; and in 1594 Kandahar 
was included in the empire. These were small 
changes ; but more important conquests were at- 
tempted in the south. Again and again in Indian 
history we find in the Deccan the bane of Delhi 
kings. Nature never intended the same ruler to 
govern both sides of the Vindhya mountains, for 
people, character, and geographical conditions are 
dissimilar. Nevertheless to conquer the Deccan has 
been the ambition of every great king of Delhi, and 
the attempt has always brought disaster. Akbar 
was not immune from the Deccan fever, but it seized 
him late in life. Up to the last decade of his reign 
his power had hardly been felt south of the Satpura 
range. As early as 1562 indeed he had taken Bur- 
hanpur and made the rajas of Khandesh and Berar 
his tributaries, but their tribute was intermittent 
and their fealty barely nominal. 

A viceroy of the Deccan was eventually appointed 
to consolidate authority, but in the hands of the em- 
peror's son Murad and his successor Prince Daniyal — 
both of whom died of drink — the office became 
contemptible. Murad's incompetence to subdue 



286 MEDIy^VAL INDIA 

open rebellion in Berar led to his recall and the ap- 
pointment of Abu-1-Fazl to the command of the 
army which in 1599 resolutely set about the re- 
conquest of the Deccan. Akbar himself arrived at 
the seat of war, and success soon followed. Ahmad- 
nagar, formerly strenuously defended by the princess 
Chand Bibi, had again fallen after six months' siege, 
and Asirgarh, the strongest fortress in Khandesh, 
opened its gate in 1600. An inscription on that 
glorious gateway, the Baland Darwaza at Fathpur, 
records how * His Majesty, King of Kings, Heaven 
of the court, Shadow of God, Jalal-ad-din Moham- 
mad Akbar Padishah conquered the Kingdom of the 
South and Dandesh, which was heretofore Khan- 
desh, in the Ilahi year 46, which is the year of 
the Hijra lOio. Having reached Fathpur he went 
on to Agra. Jesus said (on whom be peace) the 
world is a bridge; pass over it, but build no house 
there : he who hopeth for an hour may hope for 
eternity : the world is but an hour — spend it in de- 
votion : the rest is unseen.* 

In these last sad years the great heart of the 
emperor was weighed down with his grief. He had 
lost his beloved friend the poet Faizi in 1595, two of 
his own sonswere sinking to theirdishonoureddeaths; 
the eldest, Salim, was little better and had shown 
flagrant insubordination. And now the closest of 
his friends, the inspirer of many of his best thoughts 
and acts, was to be sacrificed. Prince Salim, jealous 
of Abu-l-Fazl's influence and impatient of his censure, 
caused this upright and faithful servant of his father to 
be murdered on his way back from the Deccan in 1602. 



288 



MEDIEVAL INDIA 



It was the last and crowning sorrow, and Akbar 
never recovered from the shock. The quarrels and 
intrigues of his worthless family hastened the end. 
At an elephant fight there was a scene of jealous dis- 
puting in his presence ; the weary king gave way 
to ungovernable fury, as he too often did in this 
stricken period of his decay, and he was led away sick 
unto death. Round the bed of the dying Akbar the 
intrigues for the succession went on shamelessly, but 
at the last he received his only surviving son Salim, 
and invested him with the sword of state. He died 
in October, 1605, the noblest king that ever ruled in 
India. 




CHAPTER XII 



THE GREAT MOGHUL 



AND EUROPEAN TRAVELLERS 



1605-1627 



TOWARDS the close of the sixteenth century the 
curious began to listen to rumours, vague indeed, 
but impossible to be ignored, of a new and singular 
Power that had arisen in the East. Stories were 
told of an emperor who had conquered the whole of 
Hindustan, and was ruling his vast dominions with 
extraordinary wisdom. Strange tales were bruited 
about of his toleration. It was said that Christians 
were sure of a welcome at his 'court ; that he had 
even taken a Christian to wife. Toleration was suf- 
ficiently out of tune with Tudor England, but in the 
barbarous East it possessed the charm of the wholly 
unexpected. The name and character of the Great 
Moghul became the common talk. In a few years 
Englishmen came to see him face to face as no Indian 
king had been seen by Europeans since the days when 
Alexander met Porus on the plains of the Jehlam. 
Hitherto India, except in parts of the coasts of the 
19 280 



290 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

peninsula, had been practically a terra incognita. 
What little was known had filtered through Portu- 
guese missionaries, and one has only to turn over a- 
few pages of the Travels of Europeans in the first 
quarter of the seventeenth century to realize how 
little these writers were prepared for the sights they 
saw. They found a novel and almost undreamt of 
civilization, possessing elements of practical states- 
manship and sagacity which the most philosophic of 
them all, the French physician Bernier, finds worthy 
to be commended to the serious consideration of the 
minister of Louis XIV. They met with a series of 
spectacles, ceremonies, customs, religions, systems 
of government, wholly unforeseen ; and where they 
expected to find at the utmost rude and vacuous 
pomp, they encountered literature and learning, 
poetry and art, and a reasoned theory of government, 
which, in spite of their Western prejudices, fairly 
compelled their admiration. With all this they dis- 
covered examples enough of superstition and de- 
gradation, and witnessed scenes of savage cruelty 
contrasted with barbaric splendour; yet the splen- 
dour and, the degrad'ation were such as belong not to 
uncivilized races, but to the exuberance of a great 
empire. 

The native annalists of the Moghul period are 
both numerous and authoritative. No one who has 
studied the invaluable series of volumes in which 
the late Sir Henry Elliot and Professor Dowson epi- 
tomized the * History of India as told by its own 
Historians ' will be disposed to depreciate the import- 
ance of the Persian chronicles therein extracted with 




291 



292 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

so much skill and erudition. But the native writers 
have serious defects. They are prone to panegyric, 
and disposed to exaggerate the merits of reigning 
sovereigns and contemporary magnates with the tra- 
ditional obsequiency of the oriental author. They 
are apt to suppress facts which tell against their hero, 
and it is rare to come across an Indian writer with 
the critical or historical faculty. Besides, they natur- 
ally assume a familiarity with the every-day customs 
and methods of the age in India, which a Western 
reader does not possess. They write as Indians to 
Indians. Had we to depend entirely upon them, 
our insight into life in the Moghul empire in the 
seventeenth century would be shallow. Fortunately 
we have other witnesses. Europeans of various 
nations, qualified in many respects to observe with 
penetration and record with accuracy, visited India 
in the period of Moghul supremacy, and their observ- 
ations complete and correct with singular minute- 
ness the narratives of the native chroniclers. 

The Fates were unusually propitious when they 
ordained that the Saturnian Age of Moghul power 
should coincide with a new epoch in European in- 
tercourse with the East. Up to the closing years 
of the sixteenth century one European nation had 
held the monopoly of commerce in the East Indies. 
When Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good 
Hope and landed at Calicut in 1498, the trade with 
India and the Far East passed into a Portuguese 
channel. The old routes had been in the hands 
of Mohammedan traders, who shipped their goods 
by the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, and so over- 



EUROPEAN TRAVELLERS 



293 



land to Syrian and Egyptian ports, whence the 
merchandise found its way to Europe in Venetian 
bottoms. These routes were tapped at their source 
when Portugal acquired the command of the Indian 
Ocean. In the hands of such heroes as Pacheco, 
Almeida, and Albuquerque, the control of Portugal 
over the whole of the commerce with the East 
Indies, Spice Islands, and China was assured. The 
Arab traders and Egyptian navies essayed in vain 
to oust the invaders of their ancient privileges. 
From the Cape of Good Hope to China the ex- 
tended coast-line was armed with a chain of Por- 
tuguese fortresses, and no ship could sail without 
a Portuguese passport. 

But the age of heroes for Portuguese India passed 
away, and there were still no signs of a consolidated 
Portuguese empire in the East. Albuquerque had 
dreamed of such an empire, in the spirit of a 
Dupleix or a Clive, and he had exhausted his little 
nation by the constant drain of colonization. His 
policy had not been continued, and an empire on 
Indian soil was abandoned in favour of fortified 
trading centres supported by the command of the 
Eastern seas. The forts remained, but no attempt 
at any more ambitious settlement was made ; and 
should the command of the seas be lost, there was 
nothing to save the commerce of Portugal with the 
East. The annexation by Spain in 1580 was the 
deathblow to Portuguese enterprise in the Indies ; 
but the corruption of the fidalgoes themselves, who 
found their Capua in the tropical verdure of Old 
Goa, had already paved the way to ruin= In 1597 



294 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

the Dutch appeared in the Indies, and a few years 
later they were joined by the EngHsh, upon the in- 
corporation of the first East India Company on the 
31st of December, 1600. Even so early as Pyrard de 
Laval's voyage in 1607 the Dutch had almost de- 
stroyed the Portuguese monopoly of commerce with 
the Far East ; and as soon as the English founded 
their factory at Surat, the Indian trade began to be 
transferred from Portuguese to English bottoms. 
The naval victories of Best and Downton off Surat 
and in Swally Roads decided the command of the 
sea, and the Indian trade of Portugal practically 
came to an end. 

The opening of English trade with India was 
followed by the arrival in the Moghul empire of 
European travellers, and the publication of their ex- 
periences. Two sea-captains, Hawkins and Herbert ; 
Sir Thomas Roe, the ambassador; two clergymen, 
Terry and Ovington ; Dr. Fryer, and Hedges, the 
Company's Agent and Governor, form a tolerably 
representative group of Englishmen, and there were 
many more, as may be seen in the recently edited 
correspondence of the East India Company's 
factors. France sent Pyrard, who did not get be- 
yond the Portuguese settlements in India; but the 
Travels of Tavernier, Thevenot, and Bernier are 
among our best authorities. Pietro della Valle was 
* a noble Roman,' Mandelslo a gentleman of the 
court of the Duke of Holstein, Gemelli Careri a 
Neapolitan doctor, and Manucci a Venetian. In 
such a cloud of witnesses of varied ranks, pro- 
fessions, and nationalities, truth, divested of insular 



WILLIAM HA WKINS 295 

or continental prejudice, may surely be found. The 
body of information furnished by their journals, 
letters, and travels, is indeed of priceless value to 
the historian of India. 

The visit of William Hawkins to the court of the 
Great Moghul at Agra was a memorable event in 
the history of British intercourse with India. He 
was the first Englishman ever received by the em- 
peror of Hindustan as the official representative of 
the king of England, and he obtained from the 
Great Moghul the first distinct acknowledgment of 
the rights of British commerce in India. Hawkins 
sailed with Sir Francis Drake on his voyage to the 
South Seas in 1577. Thirty years later, in 1607, 
he commanded the ' Hector ' for the East India 
Company on a voyage to Surat, charged with letters 
and presents from James I * to the princes and 
governors of Cambaya, on account of his experience 
and language.* He arrived at the bar of Surat, 
August 24, 1608, and soon discovered that his cre- 
dentials would have to be presented to a higher 
potentate than those of Cambay. After twenty 
days he obtained leave to land his cargo, and was 
told he must deliver the king's letter to the Great 
Moghul in person. Accordingly, he dismissed his 
vessel to trade with a new cargo to Bantam. The 
Portuguese, however, were not yet innocuous, and 
their ships captured the * Hector ' as soon as she 
sailed. The Portuguese captain-major received 
Hawkins's remonstrances with contempt, and set 
to * vilely abusing his Maiestie, tearming him King 
of Fishermen, and of an Island of no import, and a 



296 MEDI.^VAL INDIA 

for his Commission/ To these ir^nominious 



expressions a Portuguese naval officer added that 
* these seas belonged unto the King of Portugall, 
and none ought to come here without his license.' 
Such was the reception of the first envoy of England 
at the port of the Great Moghul. 

Hawkins soon found that his troubles had only 
begun. Notwithstanding Akbar's administrative re- 
forms, it is clear that the local authorities in Gujarat 
were oppressive and venal, and nothing could be 
done without a bribe. The governor pillaged the 
seaman's goods, only paying ' such a price as his 
owne barbarous conscience afforded. . . . He 
came to my house three times, sweeping me cleane 
of all things that were good.* Matters came to 
such a pass that the traveller had to defend his 
house by force of arms, for Padre Pineiro offered 
the governor 40,000 ' ryals of eight * if he would 
deliver up Hawkins to the Portuguese. At last on 
February i, i6of, he received a pass for his 
journey to Agra. At Burhanpur he saw the viceroy 
of the Deccan, who received him well, talked to him 
in Turkish (a language with which Hawkins was 
familiar) for three hours, accepted of course a 
present, and invested him with ' two Clokes, one 
of fine Woollen and another of Cloth of Gold ; 
giving mee his most kind letter of favour to the 
King which avayled much. This done, he imbraced 
me, and so we departed.' A guard of Patans hardly 
sufficed to save the traveller from several attempts 
at assassination, or what he believed to be such (for 
one cannot but suspect that the gallant captain 



WILLIAM HA WKINS 



297 



made the most of his perils) ; but at length, ' after 
much labour, toyle, and many dangers,' he arrived 
at Agra on April 16, 1609. 

At this time Akbar had been dead nearly four 
years, and a very different personage sat on the 
throne. The emperor Salim, entitled Jahangir, 
' World-Grasper,' formed a striking contrast to his 
father, against whom he had more than once broken 







GOLD COINS OF JAHANGIR. 

into open insurrection. Born under a superstitious 
spell, named after a wonder-working saint, petted 
and spoilt, the boy grew up wilful, indolent, and 
self-indulgent, too lazy and indifferent to be either 
actively good or powerfully evil. He had insti- 
gated the murder of Akbar's trusted friend and 
minister, Abu-1-Fazl ; he was possessed of a vio- 
lent and arbitrary temper ; and, like his wretched 
brothers Murad and Daniyal, he was a notorious 
and habitual drunkard, but unlike them he could 



298 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

control himself when necessary. His image may 
be seen depicted on his coins, wine-cup in hand, 
with unblushing effrontery : it is of a piece with 
the astonishingly simple candour of his own Me- 
moirs. As he grew older he toned down some- 
what, partly, he says, from a conviction that he 
was injuring his health, but chiefly, no doubt, under 
the influence of. his beautiful and talented wife Nur- 
Jahan, the ' Light of the World.' 

When he ascended the throne in 1605, at the age 
of thirty-seven, his character, never wanting in a 
certain indolent good-nature, had mellowed. He 
had become less savage and more sober ; by day he 
was the picture of temperance, at night he became 
exceeding * glorious.' But what was done in the 
evening was entirely ignored in the morning, and 
any noble who ventured to approach the daily levees 
with the least odour of wine upon him was destined 
to certain and severe punishment. Jahangir car- 
ried his daylight sobriety so far as even to publish 
an edict against intemperance, and emulated his 
far more contemptible 'brother' James of Great 
Britain by writing a Persian counterblast against 
tobacco. In spite of his vices, which his fine consti- 
tution supported with little apparent injury almost 
to his sixtieth year, he was no fool ; he possessed 
a shrewd intelligence, and he showed his good sense 
in carrying on the system of government and prin- 
ciple of toleration inaugurated by Akbar. He was 
not deficient in energy when war was afoot ; he was 
essentially just when his passions were not thwarted ; 
and he cultivated religious toleration with the easy- 



JAHANGIR 299 

going indifference which was the keynote of his 
character. The son of an eclectic philosopher and a 
Rajput princess, he professed himself a Muslim, 
restored the Mohammedan formulas of faith which 
Akbar had abandoned on the coinage, and revived 
the Hijra chronology, whilst preserving for regnal 
years and months the more convenient solar system. 
But he followed his father in his policy towards the 
Hindus, and was equally tolerant towards Christians. 
He allowed no persecution or badges of heresy, but 
welcomed the Jesuit father Corsi to his court, en- 
couraged artists to adorn the imperial palaces with 
pictures and statues of Christian saints, and had 
two of his nephews baptized, doubtless for his own 
purposes. He could be magnanimous and forgiving, 
when he was not angry. He even bestirred himself 
to redress the grievances of the people, — witness his 
specious ' Institutes,' and had a chain and bell 
attached to his room at the palace, so that all who 
would appeal to him could ring him up without run- 
ning the gauntlet of the officials. But it is not 
on record that anybody was hardy enough to pull 
the bell. 

William Hawkins was the first to set on record a 
portrait of this * talented drunkard,' and very curious 
it is. It was a singular situation for a bluff sea- 
captain to find himself, in an unknown land, called 
upon to meet a great emperor about whom absolutely 
nothing was known in England. There was no- 
thing to suggest the most distant dream that in two 
centuries and a half the slight introduction Hawkins 
was then effecting between England and India would 



300 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

culminate in the sovereignty of a British Queen over 
the whole empire where the * Light of the World ' 
and her imperial husband then reigned. The gift 
of prophecy would have considerably added to the 
sailor's feeling of responsibility. As it was, he was 
quickly put at his ease by the complaisant emperor. 
Jahangir was so eager to see this messenger from a 
new country that he scarcely gave him time to put 
on his * best attyre ' ; and so far from seeming an- 
noyed at the poverty of his offering, — for the gov- 
ernor of Surat had left him nothing but cloth for a 
present, — the emperor ' with a most kind and smil- 
ing countenance bade me most heartily welcome,' 
reached down from the throne to receive his letter, 
and having read it by the aid of an old Portuguese 
Jesuit (who did his best to prejudice him) promised 
' by God, that all what the King had there written 
he would grant and allow with all his heart, and 
more.' Jahangir then took his visitor into the private 
audience chamber, w^here they had a long conversa- 
tion, and, on leaving, Hawkins was commanded to 
return every day. The language of the court was 
Persian, though everyone could speak Hindustani; 
but Jahangir and several of his ministers were also 
familiar with Turkish, the native tongue of Babar 
and his descendants, and this was the language in 
which the emperor conversed with Hawkins. ' Both 
night and day, his delight was very much to talk 
with mee, both of the Affaires of England and other 
Countries.' 

The two evidently suited each other well. Haw- 
kins would have felt constrained in the presence of 



JAHANGIR 



301 



Akbar; but it was impossible to regard his son — 
at least of an evening — in any other light than as a 
jovial and somewhat tipsy boon-fellow. Hawkins 
for his part was a simple honest sailor, a little in- 
clined to bluster, but just the man to take the 




PALACE OF JAHANGIR AT AGRA. 



emperor in the right way, and not at all apt to be 
shocked at an extra allowance of grog. The result 
of the harmony between the two was that Hawkins 
acquired a footing in the court more intimate than 
was ev^er afterwards enjoyed by any European, and 
held it for years in spite of the strenuous opposition 



302 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

of the Jesuits. At one time Jahangir granted every- 
thing that the Englishman asked, 'swearing by his 
Father's soule, that if I would remeyne with him, 
he would grant me articles for our Factorie to my 
heart's desire, and would never go from his word.' 
He talked of sending an ambassador to England, 
and tried to induce Hawkins to make India his 
home, promising to make him a mansabdar or officer 
of 400 horse, with an allowance of ^^3200 a year. 
He even admitted him within the red rails before 
the throne, where only the greatest nobles stood, 
and saluted him by the lofty title of * Inglis Khan ' : 
all of which mightily delighted the honest captain. 

No wonder 'the Portugalls were like madde 
Dogges.' The English khan was universally envied ; 
but he had to work hard for his glory. Jahangir 
gave him little liberty. Half of every twenty-four 
hours he served the emperor, by day and night, and 
he was obliged to marry an Armenian — a * white 
Mayden out of his Palace', — to cook his meals for 
him, for fear of poison being mixed with his food. 
His position was moreover extremely precarious. 
The commission for an English factory at Surat was 
first granted, and then, under pressure from the 
Portuguese viceroy, withdrawn. ' Let the English 
come no more,' said the emperor, weary of the 
squabble. But Hawkins knew the way to mend the 
matter, and on his giving Jahangir a fresh present, 
this order was rescinded : ' so this time againe I was 
afloate.* Then the Portuguese plied the emperor 
with bribes, and Hawkins fell out of favour. Nur- 
Jahan reversed this state of things for the moment, 



JAHANGIR 303 

but Hawkins found it impossible to pin the emperor 
to his promises, and retired from court in disgust, 
Nov. 2, 161 1. He sailed for Bantam in the follow- 
ing January in Sir Henry Middleton's fleet, and died 
a couple of years later on his voyage home. 

Hawkins's intimacy with the Great Moghul gave 
him unrivalled opportunities for observation ; but 
he was not an educated or penetrating observer. A 
good deal of his information ^ is obviously based 
upon hearsay, but there is a large amount of first- 
hand evidence which no historian of Mohammedan 
India can afford to neglect. He describes the life- 
peers, or ' men of Livings or Lordships ' as he calls 
them, in their several ranks, from those * of the Fame 
of 12,000 Horsemen* down to those of 20 horse, and 
says there were altogether 3000 in receipt of such 
grants. The army raised by these mansabdars 
amounted to 300,000 horsemen, which were main- 
tained out of the income allowed to their rank. On 
their death, all their property went to the emperor, 
and 'all the lands belong to him,' but 'commonly 
he dealeth well ' with their children. The king's 
yearly income he places at fifty crors of rupees, or 
over fifty millions of pounds. The royal treasury 
contained an infinity of gold plate and jewels, in- 
cluding 500 drinking cups, some of which were 
made of ' one piece of Ballace Ruby.* The ser- 
vants, gardeners, grooms, and others, attending upon 
the court, he estimates at 36,000. There were 
also 12,000 elephants, of which 300 were reserved 

' Narrative of Occurrents, etc., in The Hazvkins Voyages^ ed. 
Sir Clements Markham (Hakluyt Society, 1S78). 



304 MEDIALVAL INDIA 

exclusively for the emperor's use. The daily ex- 
penses of the court were 50,000 rupees, besides 
30,000 for the harim ; or together, ^^9000, which 
comes to three and a quarter millions a year. 

He describes the emperor as far from popular with 
his subjects, ' who stand greatly in fear of him,' and 
ascribes this partly to his preference for Moham- 
medans over Rajputs for posts of honour and com- 
mand, and partly to his innate cruelty. Jahangir 
took pleasure in seeing men executed or torn to 
pieces by his elephants, and the dangerous sport of 
elephant fights was his favourite spectacle on five 
days in the week. He was said to have killed his 
secretary with his own hand on mere suspicion, and 
flogged a man almost to death for breaking a dish. 
He delighted in combats between men and animals, 
and made an unarmed man fight with a lion till he 
was torn to shreds. At last the keepers contrived 
to tame fifteen young lions, who played before the 
king, * frisking betweene men's legs,' and with these 
animals as opponents the combats became compara- 
tively bloodless. All this cruelty, added to a rapa- 
cious and severe government, produced disaffection 
among his subjects. Thieves and outlaws infested 
the roads, and many rebellions broke out. 

The daily life of the emperor Jahangir was scarcely 
edifying. 'About the breake of -day, he is at his 
Beades, with his face turned to the westward in a 
private faire room,' in which is 'the picture of Our 
Lady and Christ, graven in stone.' Then he shows 
himself to the people, who flock to bid him good- 
morrow. Two hours of sleep ensue, then dinner, 



THE TALENTED DRUNKARD 305 

after which the emperor retires to his women. At 
noon he again holds public levee till three, and 
witnesses the elephant fights and other sports. The 
nobles at Agra all come and pay him homage, and 
he hears all causes and complaints. He then says 
his prayers, and has a meal of four or five sorts of 
well-dressed meats, of which * he eateth a bit to stay 
his stomach, drinking once of his stronge drinke. 
Then he cometh forth into a private roome, where 
none can come but such as himself nominateth (for 
two yeeres I was one of his attendants here). In 
this place he drinketh other five cupfuls, which is 
the portion that the Physicians alot him. This done 
he eateth opium, and then he ariseth, and being in 
the height of his drinke, he layeth him down to 
sleep, every man departing to his own home. And 
after he hath slept two houres they awake him, and 
bring his supper to him, at which time he is not able 
to feed himselfe ; but it is thrust into his mouth by 
others, and this is about one of the clock ; and then 
he sleepeth the rest of the night.* 

Such was Akbar*s successor, and such the sovereign 
to whom Sir Thomas Roe presented his credentials as 
ambassador of the king of England in January, 161 5. 
Roe had come to complete what Hawkins had only 
partly succeeded in effecting. The EngHsh agents 
and graders were still in a humiliating situation, sub- 
ject to all kinds of indignities, possessing no recog- 
nized or valid rights, and obliged to sue and bribe for 
such slight facilities as they could win. Their chiefs, 
the agents of the East India Company, had brought 
scorn upon their nation by ' kotowing' to the Moghul 



306 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

dignitaries, cringing to insult, asserting no trace 
of dignity ; and had even ' suffered blowes of the 
porters, base Peons, and beene thrust out by them 
with much scorne by head and shoulders without 
seeking satisfaction.' Englishmen were flouted, 
robbed, arrested, even whipped in the streets. It 
was evident that a different manner of man was 
needed to retrieve the indignity done to our name 
and honour. Sir Thomas Roe was invited by the 
directors, after much consideration and debate, to 
accept the task, and the choice was approved by 
King James, whose royal commission duly consti- 
tuted, appointed, ordained, and deputed ' the said 
Sir Thomas Rowe our true and undoubted Attorney, 
Procurator, Legate, and Ambassador ' to that ' high 
and mighty Monarch, the Create Mogoar, King of 
the Orientall Indyes, of Condahy, of Chismer, and of 
Corason.' 

Roe was in every way an excellent choice. He 
combined the business capacity of the great mer- 
chant with the urbanity and address of the courtier. 
His grandfather was lord mayor of London, and the 
blood of the Greshams ran in his veins ; but he was 
entered at Magdalen College, Oxford, belonged to 
the Middle Temple, had been esquire of the body 
to Queen Bess herself, and was on terms of affec- 
tionate intimacy with Prince Henry and his^sister 
Elizabeth, the future 'Rose of Bohemia.' Not yet 
thirty-five, he had led a voyage of discovery to 
Cuiana and explored the Orinoco ; he had disputed 
in Latin with Dutch divines; he had even sat for 
Tamworth in the ' Addled Parliament.' The East 



SIR THOMAS ROE 307 

India directors described him as 'of a pregnant 
understanding, well spoken, learned, industrious, and 
of a comelie personage,' and the latest and best editor 
of his Journal^ justly adds that 'his command- 
ing presence and dignified bearing were useful 
qualifications for a mission to an Eastern court, 
while in the still more important matters of judg- 
ment and tact he was equally well equipped. 
Sprung from a noted City family, he combined the 
shrewdness, readiness of resource, and business 
ability which had raised his ancestors to fortune, 
with the culture and experience obtained by a varied 
training in most favourable circumstances.' 

More than all this, he was a true Elizabethan, 
with the gallant bravery, the passionate devotion to 
king and country, the great-hearted fanaticism of 
his age. It was not the merchant's son, but the 
Elizabethan gentleman, who faced the Moghul 
prince as- an equal, and told an insulting prime 
minister that ' if his greatness were no more than 
his manners he durst not use me soe ; that I was an 
Ambassador from a mighty and free Prince, and in 
that -quality his better.' When the governor of 
Surat tried slyly to carry out the odious practice, 
hitherto tamely allowed, of seaching the persons of 
British subjects, in spite of Roe's claiming the abso- 
lute exemption of an ambassador's suite, there was a 
spirited scene : ' Master Wallis breaking out came 
up after me and tould me this treachery ; whereon 

* The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Cotcrt of the Great 
Moghul, Edited from contemporary records by W. H. Foster 
(Hakluyt Society, 1S99). 



3o8 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

I turnd my horse ancT with all speed rode backe to 
them, I confess too angry. When I came up, I layd 
my hand on my sword, and my men breake through 
and came about me. Then I asked what they en- 
tended by soe base treachery : I was free landed, 
and I would die soe, and if any of them durst touch 
any belonging to me, I bade him speake and shew 
himselfe. Then they desired me not to take yt in 
ill part : it was done in Frendship. I called for a 
Case of Pistolls, and hanging them at my saddle I 
replyed those were my Frendes, in them I would 
trust. ... It was a Custome to be usd to 
rouges and theeves and not to free men : I was 
resolved not to return to my Country with shame ; 
I would rather dye there with Honor.' 

Roe was certainly no meek-tempered man. His 
Journal is full of similar scenes. But he did well to be 
angry, and his defiant and punctilious assertion of his 
dignity, as the mirror of his sovereign, his insistence 
upon every necessary point of courtesy, and his 
stately refusal to unbend a jot of his proud bearing, 
had their due effect. When he came to India, the 
English were very nearly on the point of being 
driven out of even their slight hold at Surat ; the in- 
fluence of the Portuguese at court threatened to oust 
the scanty merchant colony which, in deep humilia- 
tion, was unconsciously laying the foundations of 
empire ; the Moghul authorities were accustomed to 
treat the English as beggars to be spurned. All this 
was changed before he left. Despite the opposition 
of the prince, afterwards Shah-Jahan, who almost 
ruled his father, and who, as governor of Surat, had 



SIR THOMAS ROE 309 

the means of making his enmity felt ; in spite of the 
intrigues of the empress, the prime minister, and the 
Jesuits, Roe not merely asserted his countrymen's 
rights, but won a series of important diplomatic 
victories. He compelled the court favourite to re- 
fund his illegal exactions, and * recovered all bribes, 
extortions, debts made and taken before my tyme 
till this day, or at least an honourable composition.' 
His firmness and courage, combined with wary man- 
agement, were too much for the cleverness of Father 
Corsi, and the Portuguese almost lost their influence. 
The emperor and his son were men fully capable of 
measuring and admiring Roe's manly qualities ; and 
his independence and dogged persistence, supported 
by natural dignity and courtliness, won from the 
Moghul authorities as much advantage as could at 
that time be expected. 

The ambassador tried in vain to obtain a general 
treaty, embodying articles resembling the capitula- 
tions granted in Turkey. Experience taught him 
that the time was not ripe for any such concession, 
and the Moghul emperor was too ignorant of foreign 
kingdoms to measure India with them. ' Neyther 
will this overgrowne Eliphant,' said Roe, ' descend to 
Article or bynde himselfe reciprocally to any Prince 
upon terms of Equality, but only by way of favour 
admitt our stay.' 'You can never expect to trade 
here upon Capitulations that shall be permanent. 
Wee must serve the tyme.' All he could obtain were 
firmans, or orders to the local authorities, sanctioning 
the English trade at Surat upon reasonably satisfac- 
tory terms. ' You shall be sure of as much priviledge 



310 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

as any stranger,' he promised, and he kept his word. 
The Enghsh factory at Surat was set on a sufficiently 
stable basis, and recognized officially by emperor and 
prince-governor. 

Indeed Roe was disposed to judge favourably of 
the Moghul authorities, considering their ignorance 
and the uncertainty of their official position. 'AH 
the Government dependes upon the present will,* he 
wrote in 1618, 'whose appetite only governs the 
lordes of the kingdome ; but their Justice is generallie 
good to strangers ; they are not rigorous, except in 
scearching for thinges to please \i. e., presents and 
luxuries], and what trouble we have is for hope of 
them, and by our owne disorders.' He marked the 
turbulence of the English crews and even of some of 
the factors, and warned the Company against a policy 
of aggression : ' A war and trafique are incompati- 
ble. By my consent, you shall no way engage your- 
selves but at sea, wher you are like to gayne as 
often as to loose. It is the beggering of the Portugall, 
notwithstanding his many rich residences and terri- 
toryes, that hee keepes souldiers that spendes it ; yet 
his garrisons are meane. He never profited by the 
Indyes since hee defended them. Observe this 
well. It hath beene also the error of the Dutch, who 
seeke Plantation heere by the sword. They have a 
woonderfull stocke, they proule in all Places, they 
Posses some of the best ; yet ther dead Payes con- 
sume all the gayne. Lett this bee received as a rule 
that if you will Profitt, seeke it at Sea, and in quiett 
trade"; for without controversy it is an error to affect 
Garrisons and Land warrs in India.' 



Sm THOMAS ROE 



311 



Roe's Journal is perhaps better known than any 
similar work on India; but it is extremely limited 
in its scope. It deals almost exclusively with the 
court and the ambassador's audiences with the em- 
peror, and the political intrigues of the time, but of 
the state of the country it reveals little. As a record 




TOMB OF NUR-JAHAN'S FATHER AT AGRA. 

of court life, however, it forms an admirable com- 
plement to Hawkins's narrative. Sir Thomas was 
admitted to the king's privacy almost with the free- 
dom which the seaman enjoyed. Indeed Jahangir 
seemed to be unable to distinguish between an 
ambassador and a buccaneer, and entertained his 



312 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

excellency with a familiar joviality which severely 
tried the patience of the grave diplomatist. He 
made him sneeze with his * strong drink,' to the de- 
light of the assembled court, and then fell asleep 
in his cups, when the candles were immediately 
' popped out,' and Sir Thomas ' groppt ' his way out 
in the dark. Jahangir especially piqued himself on 
his taste for art ; pictures and statues, even of the 
Madonna, adorned his palace, and in the hall of 
audience were displayed pictures of ' the King of 
England, the Queen, the Lady Elizabeth, the 
Countesse of Somerset and Salisbury, and of a Cit- 
izen's wife of London ; below them, another of Sir 
Thomas Smith, Governour of the East-India Compa- 
nie.' When Roe showed him an English picture, 
he immediately had it copied by Indian artists, so 
that the owner could not tell which was the origi- 
nal, whereat the Great Moghul 'was very merry and 
joyfull, and craked like a Northerne man.' In his 
usual communicative mood of an evening, ' with 
many passages of jests, mirth, and bragges concern- 
ing the Arts of his Country, hee fell to aske me 
questions, how often I drank a day, and how much, 
and what ? what Beere was ? how made ? and whether 
I could make it here? In all which I satisfied his 
great demands of State.' 

The ambassador must have found the privy council 
room of an evening anything but a suitable place for 
business. One night he was summoned thither after 
he had got to bed, merely to show the Great Moghul 
a portrait. ' When I came in I found him sitting 
cross-legd on a little Throne, all clad in Diamonds, 



WEIGHING THE EMPEROR 313 

Pearls, and Rubies, before him a table of Gold, in it 
about fiftie pieces of Gold plate, set all with stones, 
his Nobilitie about him in their best equipage, whom 
he commanded to drinke froliquely, several wines 
standing by in great flagons. ... So drinking, 
and commanding others, his Majestic and all his 
Lords became the finest men I ever saw, of a thou- 
sand humours.' At other times Jahangir waxed 
solemn and sentimental: 'The good King fell to 
dispute of the Lawes of Moses, Jesus and Mahomet, 
and in drinke was so kinde, that he turned to me 
and said: I am a king, you shall be welcome: 
Christians, Moores, Jewes, he medled not with 
their faith ; they came all in love, and he would 
protect them from wrong, they lived under his 
safety, and none should oppresse them ; and this 
often repeated, but in extreame drunkenesse, he fell 
to weeping and to divers passions, and so kept us 
till midnight.' On another occasion the ambassador 
found him sharing the coarse meal of ' a filthy beggar ' 
— a holy fakir, no doubt — 'taking him up in his 
armes, which no cleanly body durst, imbracing him, 
and three times laying his hand on his heart, calling 
him father ' : for superstition was a potent factor in 
this singular specimen of royalty. 

Among the court festivals which Sir Thomas Roe 
witnessed none was more curious than the process of 
weighing the Great Moghul. ' The first of Septem- 
ber was the King's Birth-day, and the solemnitie of 
his weighing, to which I went, and was carryed into 
a very large and beautiful Garden, the square within 
all water, on the sides fiowres and trees, in the midst 



314 * MEDIEVAL INDIA 

a Pinacle, where was prepared the scales, being hung 
in large tressels, and a crosse beame plated on with 
Gold thinner the scales of massie Gold, the borders 
s€t with small stones. Rubies and Turkeys, the 
Chaines of Gold large and massie, but strengthened 
with silke Cords. Here attended the Nobilitie, all 
sitting about it on Carpets until the King came ; who 
at last appeared clothed or rather loden with Dia- 
monds, Rubies, Pearles, and other precious vanities, 
so great, so glorious ; his Sword, Target, Throne to 
rest on, correspondent ; his head, necke, breast, armes, 
above the elbows, at the wrists, his fingers every one, 
with at least two or three Rings ; fettered with 
chaines, or dyalled Diamonds ; Rubies as great as 
Wal-nuts, some greater ; and Pearles such as mine 
eyes w^ere amazed at. Suddenly he entered into the 
scales, sate like a woman on his legges, and there 
was put in against him many bagges to fit his weight, 
which were changed six times, and they say was 
silver, and that I understood his weight to be nine 
thousand rupias, which are almost one thousand 
pounds sterling: after with Gold and Jewels, and 
precious stones, but I saw none, it being in bagges 
might be Pibles ; then against Cloth of Gold, Silk, 
Stuffes, Linen, Spices, and all sorts of goods, but I 
must believe for they were in sardles. Lastly against 
Meale, Butter, Corne, which is said to be given to 
the Banian.' 

One of the lights thrown by Roe's Journal on the 
administration of the Moghul Empire is contained 
in his report of a conversation which he held with 
the * Viceroy of Patan,' which shows the profits 



SIR THOMAS ROE 315 

derived by the mansabdars or life-peers from their 
appanages : ' As for his Government of Patan onely, 
he gave the King eleven Lackes of Rupias (the Rupia 
sterling is two shillings two pence), all other profits 
were his, wherein he had Regall authoritie to take 
what he list, which Avas esteemed at five thousand 
horse, the pay of every one at two hundred Rupias 
by the yeare, whereof he kept fifteene hundred, and 
was allowed the Surplusse as dead paY : besides the 
King gave him a Pension of one thousand Rupias a 
day, and some smaller governments. Yet he assured 
me there were divers had double his entertainment, 
and about twenty equalL' This being translated 
means that the governor of Patna was an officer or 
mansabdar of the rank of 5,000 horsemen, nominal, 
but was only expected to maintain a force of 1,500, 
which cost him 300,000 rupees a year. But he drew 
from the imperial treasury at the rate of 5,000 horse, 
or 1,000,000 rupees, thus gaining 700,000 profit, be- 
sides whatever he could sweat out of the taxes of the 
province which was farmed out to him, beyond the 
1, 100,000 rupees he had to pay as rent to the treasury. 
In other words, this official drew a fixed salary of 
nearly i^8o,ooo a year, besides what he could make 
out of the taxes, and without reckoning the pension 
of 1,000 rupees a day, which is probably a confused 
repetition of the 300,000 allowed for the troops. It 
was at any rate four times the pay of a British vice- 
roy of India. 

Roe had no easy time, what with the intrigues of 
the court, the vacillations of the emperor, and the 
hostility of the Dutch, for whom he always nourished 



3l6 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

an inveterate dislike. * They wrong you in all Parts, 
and grow to insuffrable insolencies . . . andvsevs 
woorse than any braue enemie would or any other 
but vnthanckfull drunckards that wee haue releeued 
from Cheese and Cabbage, or rather from a Chayne 
with bread and water.' In his solitude and harass- 
ments his great consolation was the sense of duty 
ungrudgingly performed, and he could write to his 
employers proudly, yet without boasting, ' My sincer- 
ity toward you in all Actions is without spott ; my 
Neglect of Priuat Gayne is without example, and my 
frugalitye beyond your expectation. I was neuer an 
ill husband of my Credit nor any trust committed to 
mee. My Patrimoniall vnthriftines only I feele and 
repent ... I will bragg of no Industrie nor 
successe. Judge mee by my Actions, Not by the 
fauour of an Infidell King, with whom yet I stand on 
such outward showes of Creditt as Neuer any stranger 
did.' His ' frugalitye ' was indeed extraordinary. 
He kept up the embassy on about ;^25o a year; his 
own salary was only ;^6oo ; and though the company 
received him with twelve coaches at Tower Wharf, 
and voted him ;;^i,5oo for his services, he returned a 
poor man, and was thankful to accept another mis- 
sion from the king, though it involved a second exile, 
to Constantinople. In those days it was an excep- 
tion for a man in his position to refuse, as unworthy 
of his high office, the many opportunities for making 
money in India. But Thomas Roe was fashioned in 
a refined and exalted ideal of conduct, and his high 
principles and noble character stand clearly revealed 
in his writings. 



THE EMPRESS NUR-JAHAN ' 317 

We shall obtain no more familiar glimpses of the 
jocund court of Jahangir after Sir Thomas Roe's de- 
parture in 1618. The ambassador's chaplain, Edward 
Terry, in his ' Voyage to the East Indies,' adds 
little ; nor is much to be learnt about the court, or 
even the country and government, from the Travels 
of Pietro della Valle, who visited Surat, Ahmadabad, 
and Cambay in 1623, and then turned south to Goa. 
He gives an amusing account of the sumptuous way 
of life among the English merchants of Surat, but 
he has little to tell of the Moghul empire and he did 





COIN OF JAHANGIR AND NUR-JAHAN. 
Struck at Agra, A, H. 1037 (A.D. 1627-8.) 



not see the capital. But of the famous empress, the 
* Seal of Womankind ' (Muhr-i-Nisa), Nur-Jahan — or 
as she was then called Nur-Mahall, he has this notice : 
' He hath one Wife, or Queen, whom he esteems and 
favours above all other Women ; and his whole Em- 
pire is govern'd at this day by her counsel. . . . She 
was born in India, but of Persian Race. . . . 
She was formerly Wife in India to another Persian 
Captain, who served the Moghul too ; but after her 
Husband's death, a fair opportunity being offer'd, as 
it falls out many times to some handsome young 
Widows I know not how, Sciah Selim had notice 



3l8 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

of her, and became in love with her. ... At 
leng-th he determin'd to receive her for his lawful 
Wife above all the rest. And as such she commands 
and governs at this day in the King's Haram with 
supream authority ; having cunningly remov'd out 
of the Haram, either by marriage, or other hand- 
some ways, all the other Women who might give her 
any jealousie ; and having also in the Court made 
many alterations by deposing and displacing almost 
all the old Captains and Officers, and by advancing 
to dignities other new ones of her own creatures, 
and particularly those of her blood and alliance. 
This Queen is call'd at this day Nurmahal, which 
signifies Light of the Palace.* 

' By degrees,' says Mohammad Hadi, the continuer 
of Jahangir's Memoirs, ' she became, in all but name, 
undisputed sovereign of the empire, and the king 
himself became a tool in her hands. He used to say 
that Nur-Jahan Begam has been selected, and is wise 
enough, to conduct the matters of state, and that 
he wanted only a bottle of wine and a piece of meat 
to keep himself merry. Nur-Jahan won golden 
opinions from all people. She was liberal and 
just to all who begged her support. She was an 
asylum for all sufferers, and helpless girls were 
married at the expense of her private purse. She 
must have portioned above five hundred girls in her 
lifetime, and thousands were grateful for her 
generosity.' 

So great was the influence of this Persian princess 
that Jahangir joined her name with his own on the 
coinage, a conjunction unparalleled in the history of 
















319 



ZODIACAL GOLD MOHRS OF JAHANGIR. 



320 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Mohammedan money ; though the popular story of 
her having issued the famous Zodiacal Mohrs, when 
the emperor allowed her the privilege of mint-mistress 
for a single day, is without foundation. Her un- 
limited dominion over her husband, who loved her 
with a supreme devotion, is the more remarkable 
since she was no longer young when he married her 
in 1610, and Indian widows of thirty-four are usually 
widows indeed. This gifted woman aided by her 
subtle brother, Asaf Khan, practically ruled the 
empire during the greater part of Jahangir's reign, 
much to his satisfaction ; but although at first her 
influence kept him straight and benefited the empire, 
her overweening power, covetousness, and unscru- 
pulous favouritism aroused bitter jealousies ; and to 
the resulting intrigues were due the troubles that 
darkened the closing days of that self-indulgent 
emperor, the weakening of the old martial spirit of 
the Moghuls, the corruption and cupidity of the 
court, and the rebellion of Jahangir's son. His reign 
so far had been successful and curiously little dis- 
turbed. There had been hostilities with the rana of 
Udaipur, which were ended in 1614 by the military 
genius of Prince Khurram, the future Shah-Jahan; 
and, besides temporary revolts in Bengal and else- 
where, there was the constant difficulty of maintain- 
ing a hold upon the Deccan provinces, where there 
was hard fighting with Malik Amber, the able vezir 
of the Nizam Shah.' The boundaries of the empire 
remained much where they had been under Akbar, 
though Kandahar was lost to the Persian Shah in 

^ See below p, 344. 



PRINCE KHUSRU 32 1 

1622 and not recovered till It was betrayed to Shah- 
Jahan in 1637. On the whole the years had been 
tranquil until the question of the succession excited 
rival interests. 

Jahangir's eldest son, Prince Khusru, who seems 
to have been always on bad terms with his father, 
had openly rebelled in the early days of the reign, 
and on his defeat was condemned to a lifelong but 
not severe captivity, whilst many of his followers 
were impaled by his infuriated father in the presence 
of the youth whom they had followed to the death. 
Khusru had by some quality or other acquired extra- 
ordinary popularity — as Roe's Journal repeatedly 
indicates, — and people compassionated his dreary 
fate, and even rose in open rebellion in his cause, 
with the like enthusiasm that others in Britain 
showed for Marie Stuart or Prince Charlie. He 
was believed to have been blinded by his father, but 
Delia Valle explains that though the eyelids were 
sewn up the eyes were still uninjured when Jahangir 
caused them to be unripped, * so that he was not 
blinded but saw again and it was only a temporal 
penance.' Sir Thomas Roe met him and found him 
an interesting mystery. The second son, Khurram, 
reckoned him an exceedingly dangerous factor in 
politics. What actually happened will never be 
known ; but when Prince Khurram went to restore 
order in the Deccan in 162 1 he insisted on taking his 
elder brother with him, and there the unfortunate 
Khusru died, — of a fever, as was said, but such 
fevers sometimes happen very opportunely in the 
East. 



322 MEDIJEVAL INDIA 

Khurram, or Shah-Jahan as he was already styled, 
now became more clearly marked out than ever as 
the future emperor. He was the best general of his 
time, and had overcome the Rajputs of Udaipur and 
the many-headed foe in the Deccan. He was an 
able administrator and a cool calculating statesman. 
But he was intensely unpopular in those early days, 
however well he overcame the prejudice afterwards. 
Sir Thomas Roe found him cold and repellant, 
though always stately and magnificent. ' I never 
saw so settled a countenance,' he wrote, * nor any 
man keepe so constant a gravitie, never smiling, nor 
in face shewing any respect or difference of mien.' 
There was nothing in common between Jahangir 
and this capable self-contained son whom the father, 
depressed by his gravity, plaintively exhorted to 
take a little wine, ' not to excess, but to promote 
good spirits ' ; and to Nur-Jahan, who had for- 
merly supported him, he became hateful, perhaps 
the more so since he had won her brother Asaf's 
favour by marrying his daughter, the lady of the 
Taj. Her aim was to induce her husband to name as 
successor his youngest son (by another wife) Shah- 
riyar, a handsome fool, who had married her daughter 
by her first marriage, and so to keep the dreaded Shah- 
Jahan out of power. Jahangir however favoured his 
third son Parviz, who could drink level with him- 
self. The result was civil war. Shah-Jahan, no 
longer impeded by an elder brother's claim, took 
the field against his father, but was defeated, and 
after an attempt at independent sovereignty in 
Bihar and Bengal (1624), and a final resort to the 



INTRIGUES FOR THE SUCCESSION 323 

protection of his old enemy Malik Amber in the 
Deccan, the rebel prince made his submission, sur- 
rendered his few remaining forts, and sent two of 
his sons, Dara and Aurangzib, as hostages to Agra. 

Shah-Jahan was now apparently helpless, and the 
imperious queen next sought to gain the command 
of the army. The general, Mahabat Khan, however, 
was not to be won over, and seeing that his own 
command, even his life, was at stake, he took the 
bold course of seizing the person of the emperor 
whilst he was separated from his guard when on the 
point of crossing the Behat (Hydaspes) on his way 
to subdue a rising at Kabul (1626). The empress, 
far from daunted by this unexpected stratagem, lost 
not a whit of her splendid courage. She secretly 
escaped to the imperial guard, and marshalled her 
husband's troops against the division of his cap- 
tor, riding at the head of the army on her tall 
elephant, armed with bow and arrows. Mahabat's 
Rajputs had burned the bridge, but the empress 
was among the first to cross the ford and engage 
the enemy on the other side. * A scene of uni- 
versal tumult and confusion ensued : the ford was 
choked with horses and elephants; some fell and 
were trampled under foot ; others sank in the pools 
and were unable to regain the shore ; and numbers 
plunged into the river and ran the chance of making 
good their passage or being swept away by- the 
stream. The most furious assault was directed on 
Nur-Jahan : her elephant was surrounded by a crowd 
of Rajputs ; her guards were overpowered and cut 
down at its feet; balls and arrows fell thick round 



324 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

her howdah, and one of the latter wounded the in- 
fant daughter of Shahriyar, who was seated in her 
lap. At length her driver was killed ; and her 
elephant, having received a cut on the proboscis, 
dashed into the river and soon sank in deep water 
and was carried down the stream. After several 
plunges he swam out and reached the shore, where 
Nur-Jahan was surrounded by her women, who 
came shrieking and lamenting, and found her how- 
dah stained with blood, and herself busy in extract- 
ing the arrow and binding up the wound of the 
infant/ 

Open war had failed, and the brave woman re- 
sorted to other methods. She boldly entered the 
camp and for months shared her husband's captivity. 
By degrees her arts lulled to rest the watchful sus- 
picions of the general ; she won over some of the 
leading officers to her side ; and finally one day the 
emperor found himself at liberty with his faithful 
queen beside him and the army at his command. 
Mahabat Khan fled to Shah-Jahan. The victory 
came too late, however, for Jahangir had scarcely 
restored order at Kabul and paid a visit to the happy 
vale of Kashmir, his favourite summer resort, when 
he was seized by his mortal sickness, and died be- 
fore he had attained his sixtieth year (Oct., 1627). 
There was little use now in opposing Shah-Jahan, 
who had Mahabat Khan at his side and the full sup- 
port of the army. The empress's brother, the min- 
ister Asaf Khan, joined the rising power, which he 
had always favoured, and Prince Shahriyar, who 
^ Elphin§tone, Hist, of India (1866 ed.), 570, 



326 



MEDIEVAL INDIA 



never had the smallest title to the throne, was de- 
feated, imprisoned, and killed. A temporary stop- 
gap, Dawar Bakhsh, son of Khusru, vanished as soon 
as Shah-Jahan appeared from his distant exile in 
Sind. The great empress proudly retired into private 
life, wearing thenceforward the white robe of mourn- 
ing for her queer, loving husband. She was held in 
honour, and drew a handsome pension ; but she 
appeared no more in public, and maintained her 
rigid seclusion until in 1646 she was laid in her 
grave close beside the tomb of Jahangir at Lahore. 




CHAPTER XIII 

SHAH-JAHAN 

THE MAGNIFICENT 

1628-1658 

LIKE his father, Prince Khurram, who ascended 
the throne as Shah-Jahan in January, 1628, 
was the son of a Rajput princess, a daughter of the 
rana of Marwar, and had more Indian than Moghul 
blood in his veins. From what has been recorded 
of his previous history, as one ' flattered by some, 
envied by others, loved by none,' in Sir Thomas 
Roe's words, one is prepared to find a haughty, re- 
served man, wrapped in political intrigues, person- 
ally indifferent to creeds and scruples, and disposed 
to favour his mother's race. In every one of these 
respects Shah-Jahan refutes prophecy. All his 
former cold severity seems to have melted when 
once he had made a clean sweep of his rivals, and 
after his accession the new emperor was the most 
accessible though the most stately of monarchs. He 
discontinued the obnoxious ceremonial of prostra- 
tion before the throne, upon which Jahangir had laid 

327 



328 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

great stress ; and his infailing kindness and benevo- 
lence, joined to a gracious publicity and display, 
endeared him to the people. He was the most 
popular of all the great Moghuls, though not spe- 
cially the idol of the Hindus, There was a tinge 
of intolerance in his perfectly orthodox, if not very 
ardent, profession of Sunni Mohammedanism, and 
this slightly bigoted twist was encouraged by his 
ever-beloved wife, Arjumand Banu, known as Mum- 
taz-i-Mahall, ' the elect of the palace,' the mother of 
his fourteen children, whose exquisite monument, 
the Taj at Agra, still witnesses to her husband's de- 
votion. Good Muslim as he was, Shah-Jahan was a 
man of sound judgment and knowledge of the 
world, and he was the last king to dream of let- 
ting religion over-ride statesmanship. Many of his 
generals were Hindus, and his great minister, Sa'd- 
Allali, though converted, was a Hindu by birth. 
Jesuit missionaries were still welcomed at Agra, 
where their tombstones may still be seen in the 
* Padre Santo,' and where, as Bernier records, they 
had a large and ' very fair ' church, with a ' great 
steeple ' and bell, which ' might be heard all over 
the town ' in spite of the Muslim's prejudice against 
' the devil's musical instrument.' ^ 

The result of all this popularity and good states- 
manship — for in his father-in-law Asaf Khan, Ma- 
habat (f 1634), and Ali Mardan the emperor had 

^ This toleration did not extend to the Portuguese of Hugli, whose 
piracy led to their destruction in 163 1, save such as were sent 
prisoners to Agra, where the church was then partly destroyed iti 
the temporary exciternent of fanaticism. 



SHAH-JAHAN 329 

counsellors as wise and upright even as Sa'd-Allah 
— was a reign of extraordinary prosperity. The 
French traveller Tavernier writes of* the gracious 
rule of the emperor that it resembled ' that of a 
father over his children/ and testifies to the firm 
administration of justice and the universal sense of 
security. A Hindu contemporary almost outshines 
the Muslim and Christian eulogists in extolling the 
equity of the government, the wise and generous 
treatment of the cultivators, the probity of the law- 
courts, and the honesty of the exchequer personally 
audited by this magnificent paragon of monarchs. 
There is, no doubt, exaggeration in these pane- 
gyrics. Shah-Jahan knew how to tickle the imagin- 
ations of his subjects by gorgeous pageants and 
profuse expenditure, and he could be good-natured 
and generous when it did not interfere with his 
personal comfort. But he was too shrewd a man 
to pamper the people, and his expensive tastes 
demanded so much money that there must have 
been severe pressure on the taxpayers, who natur- 
ally had no voice in revising the eulogies of con- 
temporary chroniclers. 

That such was the case may be gathered from 
the observations of Mandelslo, who ranks quite as 
high, as an intelligent traveller, as the more famous 
Delia Valle. He was a native of Mecklenburg, and 
was educated as a page at the court of the Duke of 
Holstein. When this potentate in 1633 despatched 
an embassy to ' the Great Duke of Muscovy and 
the King of Persia,' Albert Mandelslo, then only 
nineteen, begged to be allowed to accompany the 



330 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

ambassadors and explore the distant countries to 
which they were accredited. He was attached to the 
embassy as a * Gentleman of the Chamber,' and was 
even granted leave to pursue his travels further, 
when the ambassadors' business was accomplished. 
Accordingly when their Excellencies the Sieurs 
Crusius and Brugman departed from Ispahan in the 
beginning of 1638, Mandelslo pushed on to India by 
way of Persepolis, Shiraz, and Gombroon, where he 
took sail in an English ship, the ' Swan,' three hun- 
dred tons, twenty-four guns, Master Honywood, 
bound for Surat, and after nineteen days' voyage 
made the port on the 25th of April. Mandelslo's 
travels in India — he went on afterwards to China 
and Japan — were chiefly limited to the usual stay 
at Surat, and a journey through Ahmadabad to 
Agra and back by Lahore to Surat. Out of the 
eight months of his sojourn in the Moghul empire, 
five were spent at Surat, while his stay at Agra was 
unexpectedly brought to an end, apparently before 
he had been a month at the capital. 

Like Delia Valle, he was much impressed with the 
Dutch and English factories at Surat. * They have 
there their Lodges, their Store-houses, their Presi- 
dents, their Merchants, and their Secretaries, and 
indeed have made it one of the most eminent Cities 
for Trafifick of all the East.' This was just thirty 
years after Hawkins had vainly attempted to save 
one cargo from the clutches of the Moghul governor, 
and another from the Portuguese. The new com- 
panies had evidently lost no time in strengthening 
their position. * The English particularly have made 



MANDELSLO 33 1 

it the main place of all their Trading into the Indies, 
and have established there a President, to whom the 
Secretaries of all the other Factories are oblig'd to 
give an accompt. He manages affairs with the as- 
sistance of 20 or 24 Merchants and Officers, and 
hath under his superintendency the Factory of Agra, 
where they have a Secretary accompanied by six 
persons ; that of Ispahan, where they have a Secre- 
tary and seven or eight other Merchants ; that of 
Mesulipatan, with fifteen ; that of Cambay, with 
foure ; that of Amadabat, with six ; that of Brodra 
and Broitscheia, with foure ; and that of Dabul with 
two persons ; who are all oblig'd to come once a 
year to Suratta, there to give an accompt of their 
Administration to the President.' 

Mandelslo was treated by both Dutch and English 
with the princely hospitality which has ever been a 
tradition in India. He was met by a coach drawn 
by two white oxen, and heartily welcomed by the 
president, who begged him to stay with him five or 
six months, and entertained him royally. ' At din- 
ner he kept a great Table of about fifteen or sixteen 
dishes of meat, besides the Desert.' The favourite 
rendezvous for the English colony was the presi- 
dent's ^ great open Gallery,' where his friends en- 
joyed the sea-breezes of an evening. There was a 
fair garden outside the city where they all resorted 
on Sundays after sermon, and where on week-days 
Mandelslo made a small fortune by winning pistol- 
matches, ' shooting at Butts.' Sometimes they made 
a night of it over some bottles of sack; but Mandel- 
slo was an exceedingly virtuous young man, and 



332 MEDIyEVAL INDIA 

spoke no English, — two effectual bars to excessive 
conviviality. 

When he went into the interior, the same hos- 
pitable reception awaited him, not only at the hands 
of the European agents, but also of the Mohamme- 
dan merchants. Short as his stay was, the assistance 
of his hosts enabled him to make the most of his 
opportunities, and his native gift of observation 
stood him in good stead. A knowledge of Turkish 
appears to have served him well, as it did Hawkins. 
As he goes towards Agra we pick up hints which 
help us to understand the state of the provincial 
government under Shah-Jahan. In spite of the 
testimony of other writers, travelling seems to have 
been anything but safe in Gujarat in 1638. The 
Rajputs — a kind of ' High-waymen or Tories,' 
Mandelslo calls them — infested the roads, and our 
traveller had to journey in company with large cara- 
vans, and even then had occasion to fight for his 
life. He describes the governor of Ahmadabad as a 
'judicious, understanding man, but hasty, and so 
rigorous, that his government inclin'd somewhat 
to cruelty.' The ' somewhat ' appears inadequate, 
when Mandelslo goes on to describe how, when 
some dancing girls refused to come and perform at 
his bidding, this * hasty ' governor instantly had their 
heads cut off in the presence of a company which 
included the English and Dutch factors. ' Assure 
yourselves, Gentlemen,' said he, * that if I should not 
take this course, I should not long be Governour of 
Amadabat.* 'There is no King in Europe,' adds 
Mandelslo, ' hath so noble a Court as the Governour 



AGRA 333 

of Guzaratta, nor any that appears in public with 
greater magnificence. In his palace he is served as 
a King. He makes his advantages of all the Levies 
and Impositions which are made in his Government, 
so that in a short time he becomes Master of in- 
credible wealth.' 

Mandelslo describes Agra in his day as the noblest 
city of Hindustan, and the one in which the Moghul 
most delighted ; but it must be remembered that 
New Delhi was not then built. He says it was as 
much as a horseman could do to ride round the city 
in a day. ' Its Streets are fair and spacious, and 
there are some of them Vaulted, which are above a 
quarter of a League in length, where the Merchants 
and Tradesmen have their Shops, distinguished by 
their Trades and the Merchandizes which are there 
sold ; every Trade and every Merchant having a 
particular Street and Quarter assigned him.' There 
were eighty caravanserais for foreign merchants, 
' most of them three Stories high, with very noble 
Lodgings, Store-houses, Vaults, and Stables belong- 
ing to them.' He counted seventy great mosques, 
and estimates the number of public baths ' or Hot- 
Houses ' at 'above 800, the tax on which brought in a 
considerable revenue to the state. In and outside 
the city he saw numerous palaces of the rajas and 
lords, and chiefest of all the imperial palace, forti- 
fied with a moat and drawbridge. The treasure 
there jealously guarded was estimated on credible 
authority at above fifteen hundred millions of crowns, 
or over ;^ 300,000,000. ' This wealth,' he explains, ' is 
more and more augmented every day, not so much 



334 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

out of the ordinary Revenue coming in from the 
great Kingdoms he hath (in regard that as his Or- 
dinary Expence abates not anything of his Treas- 
ure ; so is it seldome seen that he increases it, by 
ought remaining at the years end of his Revenue) as 
by the presents which are made him, and the Es- 
cheats falHng to him at the death of great Lords and 
Favourites, who make the Moghul Heir to what they 
had gotten by his favour ; insomuch that the Child- 
ren have no hope to enjoy ought of their Fathers 
Estates, either Reall or Personall. For the Moghul's 
Authority is such, and his Power so absolute, that 
the Estates of all his Subjects are at his disposal. 
. There is no hereditary Dignity in all his 
country. That of Rasgi or Raja, which he bestows 
rather upon the accompt of Merit, than Birth, is 
Personall, as that of Chan in Persia, and is not de- 
riv'd to Posterity, but by the recommendation of 
Vertue. Not that it is to be inferr'd hence, that the 
Moghul does exclude from Charges the Children of 
such as have done him good service ; but he gives 
them lesser charges by which they may advance 
themselves to the Chiefest in the Kingdome, if 
either an extraordinary Vertue or the Princes Favour 
call them thereto.' 

Mandelslo describes the daily levees of the em- 
peror, his appearance in the gallery at sunrise, when 
the nobility ' salute him with their Patschach Salam- 
met,' at noon, when he comes to see the beasts fight, 
and at sunset ; but it does not appear that he was 
personally received at court. Agra was a very 
densely inhabited city at this time, ' of such extent 



THE MOGHUL ARMY 335 

and so populous, that were there a necessity, there 
might be rais'd out of it two hundred thousand men 
able to bear Armes. There is no Nation in all the 
East but hath some commerce or other at this place ; 
but most of the inhabitants are Mahumetans, and 
all the Merchandizes that are imported into it, or 
exported out of it, pay ten in the hundred.' The 
muster of the Moghul army has often been a matter 
of dispute, but Mandelslo gives a detailed account 
of the force commanded by Shah-Jahan in 1630, 
which numbered no less than 144,500 horse, besides 
elephants, camels, etc. They were armed with bows 
and arrows, javelins or pikes, scimetars, and daggers, 
with a shield for defence. * They have no fire Armes 
with wheeles, nor yet Fire-locks but their Infantry 
are expert enough at the Musquet,' a statement 
distinctly contradicted by Bernier, who says the 
musketeers were horribly afraid when their guns 
went off, and lived in dread of their beards catching 
fire. ' They know nothing,' adds Mandelslo, ' of 
the distinction of Van-guard, main Battle, and Rear- 
guard, and understand neither Front nor File, nor 
make any Battalion, but fight confusedly without 
any Order. Their greatest strength consists in the 
Elephants, which carry on their backs certain Towers 
of Wood, wherein there are three or foure Harque- 
buses hanging by hooks, and as many men to order 
that Artillery. The Elephants serve them for a 
Trench, to oppose the first attempt of the Enemy ; 
but it often comes to pass that the Artificial Fires, 
which are made use of to frighten these creatures, 
put them into such a disorder, that they doe much 



336 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

more mischief among those who brought them to 
the Field, then they do among the Enemies. They 
have abundance of Artillery, and some considerable 
great Pieces, and such as whereof it may be said, the 
invention of them is as ancient as that of ours. 
They also make Gun-Powder, but it is not fully so 
good as what is made in Europe. . . . Their 
Armies do not march about five Cos [ten miles] a 
day, and when they encamp they take up so great a 
quantity of ground, that they exceed the compass of 
our greatest Cities.' 

In the Itinerario of Father Sebastian Manrique, 
the Augustinian missionary, published at Rome in 
1649, we read that in 1640 the city of Agra stretched 
for six miles along the Jumna, and had a population 
of 600,000, excluding strangers, who crowded thither. 
He mentions the Jesuit mission and church, and 
afterwards journeying to Lahore, where the emperor 
was then residing, he describes an interview with 
the prime minister, Asaf Khan, Nur-Jahan's brother, 
to whom he was presented by a Portuguese Jesuit, 
F. da Castro. Asaf Khan dwelt in a splendid palace 
adorned with pictures, some of which illustrated the 
life of S. John Baptist. At a banquet at which the 
emperor himself was present, Father Sebastian was 
amazed at the sumptuous fare and also at the 
presence of ladies of rank unveiled. This was in 
1641, and Asaf Khan died the same year, leaving an 
immense fortune, in spite of the quarter of a million 
sterling that his palace at Lahore cost him. But, as 
Roe remarked, he, like all the court, was 'greedy of 
gifts.' Manrique learned from Father da Castro that 



338 , MEBI^VAL INDIA 

the architect of the famous Taj at Agra was Geron- 
imo Verroneo, a Venetian, and this accounts for its 
difference from other Moghul works. As the learned 
topographer and historian, Mr. Keene, has well said,^ 
'As a building and apart from its surroundings it 
cannot be pronounced to be an organic whole. No 
relation can be discovered among any of the dimen- 
sions ; the outline of the dome does not express the 
inward form of the vault it covers ; the disengaged 
towers at the four corners have no use or purpose, 
either apparent or real. The fenestrations give little 
shadow outside, no light within. Yet, masked by 
the modern garden, and consecrated by the repose 
of the whole scene — glittering, gleaming, dis- 
tinguished — there is something about the Taj, as 
we now see it, which is perhaps unequalled by any 
building in the world for that mysterious fascination 
which we express by the single short word " charm." * 
It has been called 'a dream in marble, designed by 
Titans, and finished by jewellers ' : but Zoffany 
flippantly remarked that ' it only needed a glass case.' 
The Taj-Mahall was finished in 1648, nearly eight- 
een years after the death of the queen who lay 
meanwhile in a tomb in the garden. Tavernier saw 
it building, and says 20,000 workmen were continu- 
ously employed. Long before this the other build- 
mgs which Shah-Jahan carried out at Agra were 
complete. The palaces in the Fort were erected 
between 1628 and 1637, the great Mosque in 1644- 
50, and the Moti' Masjid or 'Pearl Mosque* was 
completed in 1653. But the Taj was to be the 

* H. G, Keene, Sketch of the History of Hindustan (1885), 214. 




en 

CO 



340 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

supreme masterpiece dedicated to a supreme love, 
and there was to be no haste, but yet no rest, about 
its elaborate and stately growth. 

Whatever the glories of Agra — the capital of 
Babar and Akbar, enlarged and enriched by Sh'ah- 
Jahan — they were eclipsed by the splendour of the 
new city which the prince of Moghul builders laid 
out at Delhi. Agra is full of his noble works, but 
New Delhi, or Shahjahanabad as he named it and 
as it is still called, was his creation. It was begun 
about the time that Mandelslo was in India, and ten 
years later, in 1648, it was finished, and according to 
all accounts it must have been the most magnificent 
royal residence in the world. The learned French 
physician Bernier, — the pupil of Gassendi and school- 
fellow of Moliere, — who lived at the court for many 
years in the succeeding reign of Aurangzib, has left 
a graphic description of the new capital, extracts 
from which will be found in the next chapter. Fergus- 
son, the historian of architecture, said of the palace 
of Shahjahanabad that it was ' the most magnificent 
in the East — perhaps in the world.' The fort in which 
it stands is about a mile and a half in circuit, the 
massive walls rising 60 feet above the river, and 
higher still on the moated side towards the land. 
' Two barbicans, each 1 10 feet high, guard the main 
entrance on that side, two smaller gates opening on 
the side facing the Jumna. Within was a vast series 
of public and private halls and apartments, with a 
mosque, bath-house, and gardens ; the whole per- 
meated by a marble channel bringing in the bright 
and wholesome water of the canal,' The great 



THE AGED EMPEROR 34 1 

mosque, dated 1658, the year of Shah-Jahan's de- 
position, ' is raised on a rocky basement, and has 
three domes, and two lofty towers each 130 feet 
high. Its outside area is 1400 square yards, and the 
approach is up a flight of thirty-three steps. Three 
sides of the quadrangle are arcades or open cloisters, 
the fourth being the sanctum itself, 260 feet long, 
with a depth of 90 feet. The hall of worship is 
paved with black and white marble, marked out for 
899 worshippers.' ^ 

In this stately city Shah-Jahan spent his luxuri- 
ous old age, sometimes leaving it for a summer 
villeggiatura in the lovely valleys of Kashmir, 
whither he would journey with a set of travelling 
tents so numerous and complete that they took 
two months to pitch at the successive stages of 
the royal route. His coronation anniversaries were 
observed with splendid extravagance, and he would 
then be weighed according to Moghul custom in 
scales against the precious metals ; bowls of costly 
gems were poured over him, and all these riches, 
to the value of a million and a half, were ordered to 
be distributed among the people. The emperor 
and the court had reached a pitch of luxury that 
fostered effeminacy. In his youth and early man- 
hood Prince Khurram had been a brave soldier, 
a brilliant general, a prudent counsellor, and a stern 
and resolute governor. As he grew old he aband- 
oned all active pursuits, gave himself up more and 
more to pleasure, and suffered himself to be man- 
aged by his children. His adored wife, the lady of 
1 H. G. Keene, /. c, lis, 216. 



342 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

the Taj, had died in 163 1 in giving birth to their 
fourteenth child, and Shah-Jahan, essentially an 
affectionate * family man,' whilst denying himself 
none of the pleasures of the zenana, became en- 
grossed in his devotion to his' eldest daughter, the 
Princess Begum, Jahan-Ara. He was still the bene- 
volent and popular king that he had always been 
since his accession, but his strength of character 
was gone; he had become a mere sensual pageant 
of royalty, given over to ease and the aesthetic 
dehghts of the eye and taste. Dryden has drawn 
the contrast in * Aureng-Zebe ' : 

* O ! had he still that character maintainM 
Of Valour which in blooming Youth he gain*d ! 
He promised in his East a glorious Race; 
Now, sunk from his Meridian, sinks apace. 
But as the Sun, when he from Noon declines, 
And with abated heat less fiercely shines, 
Seems to grow milder as he goes away, 
Pleasing himself with the remains of Day: 
So he who in his Youth for Glory strove 
Would recompense his Age with Ease and Love.' 

The burden of state interfered with his enjoy- 
ment, and he sought to devolve his power upon his 
four sons, to each of whom he gave the vice-royalty 
of a distant province, in the hope of stiUing their 
dangerous jealousies. The sceptre was falling from 
his hand, and he tried to secure peace by breaking 
it in pieces. It was a fatal policy. The fragments 
of the sceptre, like the rods of Pharaoh's sorcerers, 
turned into so many serpents, which strangled the 




SHAH-jAHAN, 



343 



344 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

remnant of his power, till the rod of Aurangzib 
swallowed up the rest, and with them the Peacock 
Throne itself. 

The Deccan was the Dauphine of the Moghul 
empire. It was there that Shah-Jahan had mustered 
his strength to try conclusions with his father; and 
it was thence that Aurangzib drew his forces in the 
struggle which ended in his coronation. As the 
chief warlike events of Jahangir's reign centred 
round his son's career, so Shah-Jahan's later wars 
were mainly fought by Aurangzib. History had 
shown that whoever could rule the Deccan was 
fit to be master of India. Shah-Jahan had won 
his spurs in that never tranquil government. It 
will be remembered that Akbar had annexed 
Khandesh and a portion of Berar but had not 
conquered any of the four kingdoms into which 
the Bahmanid empire of the Deccan had broken 
up. The Nizam Shahs of Ahmadnagar, the Adil 
Shahs of Bijapur, the Kutb Shahs of Golkonda, 
were still powerful, though the Barid Shahs of Bidar 
were no more. The Nizam Shahs, being nearest 
to the Moghul frontier, were the most obnoxious, 
and their able vezir, an Abyssinian named Malik 
Amber, repeatedly routed the imperial armies, 
recovered Ahmadnagar of which they had tempor- 
ary possession, and drove them back to Khandesh. 
Malik Amber's skilful tactics with light Maratha 
cavalry, afterwards so successful in the hands of 
the same people against Aurangzib, perpetually 
harassed the Moghul troops and wore them out, 
till it seemed as if the empire of Delhi must once 



THE DECCAN 345 

more withdraw north of the dividing mountain 
range. It was then that Shah-Jahan had shown 
his mettle. Arriving in the Deccan in 1616, he 
skilfully detached the king of Bijapur from the 
support of Amber, and soon brought the vezir to 
his knees : in a year's campaign Ahmadnagar was 
recovered and Malik Amber became a tributary 
vassal. Then followed Shah-Jahan's rebellion, dis- 
grace, and flight, and the Deccan province was 
intrusted to his brother Parviz, who speedily drank 
himself to death, leaving the command to the 
general Khan-Jahan. 

Throughout Shah-Jahan's reign the Deccan had 
been constantly disturbed by wars and rebellions. 
Khan-Jahan revolted in 1629, was defeated, and 
killed in Bandelkhand (1631); but his conciliatory 
policy towards the Deccan kings, to whom he sold 
Ahmadnagar in order to strengthen his power, had 
weakened the Moghul position. The campaigns of 
A'zam, Mahabat, and Asaf Khans did little to re- 
store the lost prestige ; but when Shah-Jahan ad- 
vanced in person in 1635, the king of Bijapur at 
length found himself outmatched, and in the follow- 
ing year consented to a peace by which he agreed 
to pay ;^200,ooo to Delhi in annual tribute. The 
Nizam Shah's dominions were absorbed in the 
Moghul empire, and his dynasty extinguished. So 
matters remained for nearly twenty years, until 
Aurangzib became viceroy of the Deccan in 1655, 
and proved it once more to be the Dauphine that 
led to the steps of the throne. This third son of 
Shah-Jahan, born in 161 8, had already been governor 



346 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

of the Deccan in 1636 immediately after his father's 
successful campaign against Bijapur ; but the youth 
of seventeen seems to have been more occupied 
with thoughts of the world to come than with 
the earth beneath his eyes. In 1643, when only 
twenty-four, he announced his intention of retiring 
from the world, and actually took up his abode 
in the wild regions of the Western Ghats and 
adopted the rigorous system of self-mortification 
which distinguished the fakir or mendicant friar of 
Islam. The novelty of the experiment, however, 
soon faded away ; the fakir grew heartily tired of 
his retreat ; and the prince returned to carry out 
his notions of asceticism • in a sphere where they 
were more creditable to his self-denial and more 
operative upon the great world in which he was 
born to work. 

It is true his first campaigns were unsuccessful. 
Ordered in 1647 to take command of the provinces 
of Balkh and Badakhshan beyond the Hindu Kush, 
recently conquered from the Uzbegs by Shah-Jahan's 
generals, Aurangzib found the position untenable in 
face of the inveterate hostility of the indomitable 
hill tribes, and withdrew his forces with heavy loss. 
Nor were his attempts in 1649 and 1652 to recover 
Kandahar from the Persians, who had retaken it in 
1648, more successful. Aurangzib had again to re- 
treat discomfited, as his elder brother Dara did from 
a third attempt in 1653. These campaigns in 
Afghanistan and beyond the Hindu Kush are of no 
importance in the history of India, except as illus- 
trating the extreme difficulty of holding the mount- 



AURANGZIB IN THE DECCAN 347 

ain provinces from a distant centre ; but th^y were 
of the greatest service to Aurangzib. They put him 
in touch with the imperial army, and enabled him 
to prove his courage and tactics in the eyes of the 
best soldiers in the land. The generals learnt to 
appreciate him at his true value, and the men dis- 
covered that their prince was as cool and steady a 
leader as the best officer in India. He had gone 
over the mountains a reputed devotee, with no mili- 
tary record to give him prestige. He came back an 
approved general, a prince whose wisdom, coolness, 
endurance, and resolution had been tested and ac- 
claimed in three arduous campaigns. The wars 
over the north-west frontier had ended as such wars 
have often ended since, but they had done for 
Aurangzib what they did for Stev/art and Roberts: 
they placed their leader in the front rank of Indian 
generals. 

The inevitable destiny of a prince who had dis- 
played such ability was to govern the ever critical 
province of the Deccan. His arrival in 1655 was 
the sign for a vigorous * forward policy.' Not only 
were the kings of Golkonda and Bijapur in posses- 
sion of provinces which had once been part of the 
kingdom of Delhi, but they were Shi'a heretics, 
whom it was the duty of an orthodox Muslim to 
chastise. Aurangzib found an invaluable ally in 
Mir Jumla, a Persian of brilliant military genius, 
who in many campaigns, as vezir of Golkonda, had 
shown himself a very scourge of idolatry and perse- 
cutor of Hindus. This talented and ambitious offi- 
cer had fallen out with his king, and now threw 



348 



MEDIEVAL INDIA 



himself upon the protection of the Moghul. Over- 
joyed at the pretext Aurangzib marched upon Gol- 
konda (1656), and, but for urgent commands from 
his pacific father, would have added that kingdom 
then and there to the Moghul empire. Foiled on 
the very eve of victory, he sent Mir Jumla to Agra, 
where the crafty Persian so worked upon the cupid- 
ity of the old emperor, by describing the wealth of 
the decrepit southern kingdoms that were ready to 
fall like over-ripe fruit into his hands, and by pre- 
senting him with an earnest of the treasures to be 





GOLD COIN OF SHAH-JAHANj A.H.IO66 (A.D. 1655-6). 

amassed in the shape of the famous Koh-i-nur dia- 
mond,* which after a series of strange adventures 
now reposes among the crown jewels of England, 
that Shah-Jahan consented to an aggressive policy. 
Aurangzib, reinforced by Jumla, accordingly wrested 
Bidar from the king of Bijapur, occupied Kulbarga 
and Kaliani, and was on the point of conquering 
Bijapur itself, the capital of the Adil Shah, when 
his father's alarming illness in 1657 summoned him 
to the north. Once more he was baulked on the 
very eve of triumph. 

* See above p. 204, 



THE WAR OF SUCCESSION 349 

Shah-Jahan was believed to be dying. There was 
no law of succession, and each of the four sons pre- 
pared to fight for the throne. Shuja* was away to 
the east, governor of Bengal ; Aurangzib was down 
south in the Deccan ; Murad-Bakhsh was in the west, 
making merry in Gujarat. To Dara was assigned 
the government of Multan and Kabul ; but he had 
become so necessary to his father that he deputed 
his functions to others, and himself remained at 
Delhi attached to the king's person. Each of the 
princes behaved more like an independent sovereign 
than a lieutenant of the emperor. They had the 
command of rich revenues, which they devoted to 
the formation of large armies in preparation for the 
struggle which they knew to be inevitable. 

Shah Shuja* was first in the field. He at once an- 
nounced that his father had been poisoned by Dara ; 
proclaimed himself emperor ; engraved his name on 
the coinage of Bengal, and set out to march upon 
Agra. Almost at the same moment Murad-Bakhsh 
caused coins to be struck at Ahmadabad and the 
prayer for the king to be recited in his own name, 
and displayed his lordly instinct by immediately as- 
saulting the city of Surat and extorting six lacs of 
rupees from its luckless merchants. Aurangzib, in 
the Deccan, alone of the four brothers, assumed no 
royal function. Whatever his designs may have 
been, for the present he kept them to himself. 

Dara lost no time in sending out the imperial 
armies to chastise Shuja' and Murad-Bakhsh. The 
former was easily repulsed : Raja Jai Singh surprised 
him at his camp near Benares, and attacked before 



350 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

sun-rise, while the careless bon vivant was yet heavy 
with wine. After a brief contest the rebels gave 
way, and the dazed prince, hardly awake, hastily 
took to flight, abandoning his camp and treasure, 
artillery and ammunition. Meanwhile Aurangzib 
had made up his mind to join forces with his younger 
brother, Murad-Bakhsh, and shortly met him near 
the Narbada at the head of the Deccan army. To- 
wards the close of April, 1658, the combined forces 
came upon the royal army, under the Maharaja 
Jaswant Singh, on the opposite banks of the Nar- 
bada. Under a withering storm of arrows and jave- 
lins, Murad-Bakhsh charged across the ford, followed 
by the whole strength of the Deccan, and crashed 
into the royal forces with an overwhelming shock. 
Kasim Khan and his Mohammedans fled from the 
field. The Rajputs fought desperately, till of their 
8000 men, only 600 remained. The wounded rem- 
nant sadly followed their chief back to his desert 
fastness in Marwar. There he was received with 
bitter scorn. His high-mettled wife shut the castle 
gates in his face, saying that a man so dishonoured 
should not enter her walls : ' If he could not van- 
quish, he should die.' 

The Moghul capital was in an uproar. Dara, ex- 
asperated by the defeat, resolved to wipe out the 
disgrace, and led a magnificent array to the en- 
counter: the lowest calculation places his army at 
100,000 horse, 20,000 foot, and 80 guns, but many 
were half-hearted in his cause. At the Chambal, 
Dara found that his brothers, making a circuit, 
had already crossed the river on the 2nd of June. 



BATTLE OF SAMUGARH 35 I 

The two armies came in sight of each other on the 
7th, at Samugarh, afterwards known as Fathabad, 
' the place of victory.' For a day or more they re- 
mained observing one anothen The heat was such 
as is only known on the plains of India. It was a 
true Agra summer, and the men were fainting and 
dying in their heavy armour. Early in the morning, 
Aurangzib marshalled his men. * Keeping the com- 
mand of the centre for himself, he placed Murad- 
Bakhsh in the left wing, appointed Bahadur Khan 
to lead the right, and sent forward his own son Mo- 
hammad with the advance guard to act with the 
artillery, which was, as usual, in the van. Dara 
meanwhile disposed his forces in a similar order. 
He placed his cannon in front, linked together by 
iron chains, so that the enemy's cavalry might not 
break through. Immediately behind the cannon, he 
ranged a line of light artillery-camels, mounting 
brass pieces worked on swivels, and fired by the 
rider. Then came infantry armed with muskets. 
The mass of the army was composed as usual of 
cavalry armed with sabres, pikes, and arrows. The 
last was the favorite weapon of the Moghuls and 
Persians; the hand-pike being the special arm of the 
Rajputs. Khalil-Allah Khan commanded the right, 
Rustam Khan the left, and Dara himself was with 
the centre. 

' The battle began, as Moghul battles always did, 
by an artillery engagement ; cannon were fired ; rock- 
ets or hand-grenades were thrown to excite a stam- 
pede among the enemy's horses and elephants, and 
then the infantry came into action with their clumsy 



352 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

matchlocks, whilst flights of arrows flew over their 
heads from the archers behind. Da'ra's advance 
guard, under his son Sipihr Shukoh, then came out 
and drove in Prince Mohammad's squadrons, and 
this advantage was immediately followed up by 
bringing the left wing to bear upon Aurangzib's 
right, which wavered, and seemed on the point of 
breaking, when reinforcements opportunely came up 
from the centre. After this the engagement became 
general. Dara, towering high above his horsemen 
on a beautiful Ceylon elephant, led his centre against 
Aurangzib, carried the enemy's guns, after severe 
loss, and routed the camel corps and infantry. With 
the shock of 'horsemen against horsemen the real 
struggle began. No Moghul prince, as yet, knew 
the colour of the '' white feather," and Dara displayed 
all the splendid valour of his famous blood. Empty- 
ing their quivers upon the Deccan horse, he and his 
men came to the sword, and fought hand to hand till 
the enemy began to break and fly. 

* It was the critical moment of the fight. The day 
was going against Aurangzib. The flower of his cav- 
alry was driven back, and he was now standing, with 
scarcely a thousand men about him, awaiting Dara's 
onslaught. Never was cool courage put to a severer 
test ; but Aurangzib's nerve was steel. '^Dili, Yar- 
ana^ Take heart, my friends," he cried. " Khiida-he ! 
There is a God ! What hope have we in flight ? 
Know ye not where is our Deccan? Khuda-he ! 
Khuda-he! " Thereupon he ordered the legs of his 
elephant to be chained together, to make retreat im- 
possiblcc The mere order was enough to restore the 



Battle of samugarh 353 

ebbing courage of the few squadrons that still stood 
beside him. 

* Meanwhile Murad-Bakhsh was hotly engaged 
with Dara's right, fighting like a lion and reeking 
with slaughter. Three thousand Uzbegs charged up 
to his ensanguined elephant, and arrows, spears, and 
battle-axes rained so thickly that the frightened ani- 
mal turned to fly. The Moghul courage was again 
put to the test. The elephant's legs were quickly 
chained. Then Raja Ram Singh, of the valiant 
Rantela stock, came riding up with his Rajputs, in- 
solently shouting, '' Dost thou dispute the throne 
with Dara Shukoh ? " and hurling his spear at the 
prince, tried to cut his elephant's girths. The Mo- 
ghul, wounded as he was, and sore beset on all hands, 
cast his shield over his little son, who sat beside him 
in the howdah, and shot the raja dead. The fallen 
Rajputs, in yellow garb, and stained with their war- 
paint of turmeric, were heaped about the elephant's 
feet, and '' made the ground like a field of saffron." 

'The cool courage of the one prince and the fiery 
valour of the other daunted Dara's division. Au- 
rangzib and Murad-Bakhsh were still perilously 
hemmed in by raving Rajputs, maddened with bang^ 
and furious at the death of their chiefs, but it 
needed little to turn the balance of fortune either 
way. It was Dara's unlucky destiny always to turn 
it against himself. At this crisis he committed the 
most fatal error that an Indian commander could 
perpetrate. All the army looked to his tall elephant 
as to a standard of victory. Yet now, when the day 

seemed almost his own, he must need dismount. 

23 



354 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Murad-Bakhsh was still there on his gory elephant, 
with his howdah stuck as full of arrows as a porcu- 
pine with quills, grimly dealing blow for blow and 
shaft for shaft. Aurangzib towered high above a 
seething scrimmage of Rajputs. But where was 
Dara? It was though the sun had vanished in mid- 
heaven. A blind panic seized upon the all but vic- 
torious army, and every man fled for dear life. Once 
a panic has got hold of an Indian army, no power 
can save it. In a brief moment the tide had turned, 
and the all but vanquished became the victors. For 
a terrible moment Aurangzib had steadily main- 
tained his seat on his besieged elephant, and his 
reward was the Peacock Throne. A little too soon 
Dara had dismounted, to be " numbered among the 
most miserable of princes," a fugitive and a vaga- 
bond in the earth. Then, and not till then, did 
Aurangzib descend from his elephant, and pros- 
trating himself on the bloody field, give thanks to 
God for this great and glorious victory.' ^ 

The victory of Samugarh was the signal for all 
the world to come and tender their homage to Au- 
rangzib, who remained on the field of his triumph, 
busily engaged night and day in negotiating with his 
father's amirs. They required little inducement to 
eome over to the side of the rising man. The Raja 
Jai Singh, who commanded the army which had suc- 
cessfully repulsed Shuja' in Bengal, gave in his ad- 
hesion to the coming man. The Maharaja Jaswant 
Singh, burying the hatchet, presently followed his 

^ Lane-Poole, Atirangzib (Clarendon Press, 1893), 46-50, from 
which further extracts are subjoined. 



CAPTIVITY OF SHAH-JAHAN 355 

example and tendered his fealty to the new power. 
Dara had already fled with a few hundred followers, 
and his father had sent money and five thousand 
horsemen to assist him. Aurangzib now turned his 
attention to his most dangerous rival, the still popu- 
lar Shah-Jahan. 

The father tried to induce his son to visit him, 
but Aurangzib, suspecting a trap, sent his son Mo- 
hammad, who entered the fort of Agra on the 
1 8th of June, overcame the guard, and turned the 
palace into a prison. Shah-Jahan never left the castle 
during his seven remaining years of life. ' He was 
allowed every enjoyment that his sensuous nature 
demanded, loaded with presents, and supplied with 
such amusements as most entertained him. His 
daughter, the Begam Sahib, and all his numerous 
women, kept him company. Cooks skilfully min- 
istered to his appetite, and dancers and singing 
girls enlivened his senile revels. Like many an- 
other aged voluptuary, he became wondrously 
devout at times, and holy Mullas came and read 
the blessed Koran to him. Even Bernier, who 
disliked Aurangzib, says that the indulgence and 
respect he showed to his captive father were ex- 
emplary. He consulted him like an oracle, and 
there was nothing he would not give him, except 
liberty. The two became partly reconciled, and 
the father bestowed his blessing and forgiveness on 
the son: but they never met. Shah-Jahan died 
at the beginning of 1666 at the age of seventy-six. 
The new emperor hastened to Agra to pay respect 
to his obsequies, and the body was laid in a tomb 



356 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

near the beautiful Taj which the late sovereign had 
set up in memory of his wife.' 

The day after Shah-Jahan had been safely locked 
up, Aurangzib entered Agra, seized Dara's house 
and treasure (17 lacs of rupees'), and at once pur- 
sued his brother. Murad-Bakhsh, who had been 
enjoying the honours of kingship, accompanied him 
in all the glory of mock sovereignty and twenty- 
six lacs of rupees in his money bags. On the road 
Aurangzib found or made his boorish brother dis- 
gracefully drunk, and, protesting that such a violator 
of the law of Islam could never sit on the throne, 
threw him into chains (July 5). That night he 
was secretly conveyed to the state prison in the 
island fortress of Salimgarh, opposite Delhi, where 
he was executed three years later. 

The successful schemer led the combined forces 
in the footsteps of Dara, by forced marches, day 
and night, with his usual unflagging energy, living 
the life of a common soldier, and sleeping on the 
bare ground. His stoicism awed his followers ; but 
Dara's own tendency to political suicide saved his 
brother trouble. To sum up many months of mis- 
fortune, Dara once more braved the army of Au- 
rangzib in the hills near Ajmir, and, after four days' 
hard fighting, was again put to flight. With his 
wife and daughter and a few servants he made for 
Ahmadabad. The servants plundered his baggage 
and ravished the jewels of the princesses, and, to 

' The rupee at that time was worth 2/3. The lac {lakh) is 100,000 
rupees (^11,250), and the cror {karor) 100 lacs, or 10,000,000 
rupees (^1,125,000). 



THE END OF DARA 357 

crown his misery, when the fugitive at length 
reached the once friendly city, he found its gates 
closed against him. His wife died of hardship 
and misery, and he deprived himself of his scanty 
escort in order to send her body to be honourably 
interred at Lahore. At last ' after few welcomes 
and many rejections, after bitter bereavement and 
weary wanderings, the crown prince and would-be 
emperor of India was betrayed into the hands of 
his enemy. He was paraded through the streets 
of Delhi dressed in the meanest clothes, on a 
wretched elephant, covered with filth ; and the 
tumult which this barbarous humiliation stirred up 
among the people nearly amounted to a rebellion.' 
* Everywhere,' says Bernier, ' I observed the people 
weeping and lamenting the fate of Dara in the 
most touching language : men, women, and children 
wailing as if some mighty calamity had happened 
to themselves.* In face of such alarming sympathy 
Aurangzib resolved upon a speedy execution. A 
council was held ; Dara was found to be an apostate 
and the friend of infidels ; and on the 15th of Sep- 
tember, 1659, he was ordered to death. 'Many 
wept over his fate.* 

Meanwhile Shuja' was again in arms as viceroy 
in Bengal, and was pushing his way up the Ganges 
valley : but in vain. He was soon hunted away to 
Arakan, conveyed by Portuguese pirates, who at 
once robbed and saved him (1660). 'The last 
glimpse we get of him is tragical : wounded and 
insulted, he fled over the mountains, with but one 
woman and three faithful followers — and was heard 



358 



MEDIEVAL INDIA 



of no more.* The last rival was accounted for, 
but Aurangzib had not waited for this. He had 
already twice assumed the throne : first hurriedly 
proclaimed in the garden of Shalimar outside Delhi 
in the last days of July, 1658, he formally ascended 
the throne in state on the 26th of May, 1659. 




CHAPTER XIV 

THE PURITAN EMPEROR 

AURANGZIB 

I 659- I 680 

AURANGZIB took for his title the Persian word 
engraved on the sword which his captive 
father had given him — Alamgir, * World-compeller ' 
— and by this title he was known to his subjects 
and to succeeding generations of Mush'ms. Before 
we consider the use he made of his power we must 
realize something of his character. 

'Aurangzib was, first and last, a stern Puritan. 
Nothing in life — neither throne, nor love, nor ease — 
weighed for an instant in his mind against his fealty 
to the principles of Islam. For rehgion he perse- 
cuted the Hindus and destroyed their temples, while 
he damaged his exchequer by abolishing the time- 
honoured tax on the religious festivals and fairs of 
the unbelievers. For religion's sake he waged his 
unending wars in the Deccan, not so much to stretch 
wider the boundaries of his great empire, as to bring 
the lands of the heretical Shi'a within the dominion 

359 



360 MEDIJEVAL INDIA 

of orthodox Islam. Religion induced Aurangzib to 
abjure the pleasures of the senses as completely as 
if he had indeed become the fakir he had once de- 
sired to be. No animal food passed his lips, and 
his drink was water ; so that, as Tavernier says, he 
became '* thin and meagre, to which the great fasts 
which he keeps have contributed. During the 
whole of the duration of the comet [four weeks, in 
1665], which appeared very large in India, where I 
then was, Aurangzib only drank a little water and 
ate a small quantity of millet bread ; this so much 
affected his health that he nearly died, for besides 
this he slept on the ground, with only a tiger skin 
over him ; and since that time he has never had 
perfect health." ^ Following the Prophet's precept 
that every Muslim should practise a trade, he de- 
voted his leisure to making skull-caps, which were 
doubtless bought up by the courtiers of Delhi with 
the same enthusiasm as was shown by the ladies of 
Moscow for Count Tolstoi's boots. He not only 
knew the Koran by heart, but copied it twice over 
in his fine calligraphy, and sent the manuscripts, 
richly adorned, as gifts to Mekka and Medina. Ex- 
cept the pilgrimage, which he dared not risk lest he 
should come back to find an occupied throne, he 
left nothing undone of the whole duty of the 
MusHm. 

' Aurangzib, it must be remembered, might have 
cast the precepts of Mohammad to the winds and 
still kept — nay, strengthened — his hold of the 
sceptre of Hindustan. After the general slaughter 

^ Tavernier's Travels, transl. V. Ball (1889), i, 338. 




^^^^^ /si)); 




y\. 



AURANGZIB. 



361 



362 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

of his rivals, his seat on the Peacock Throne was as 
secure as ever had been Shah-Jahan's or Jahangir's. 
They held their power in spite of flagrant violations 
of the law of Islam ; they abandoned themselves to 
voluptuous ease, to '' Wein, Weib, und Gesang," and 
still their empire held together ; even Akbar, model 
of Indian sovereigns, owed much of his success to 
his open disregard of the Mohammedan religion. 
The empire had been governed by men of the world, 
and their government had been good. There was 
nothing but his own conscience to prevent Aurang- 
zib from adopting the eclectic philosophy of Akbar, 
the luxurious profligacy of Jahangir, or the splendid 
ease of Shah-Jahan. The Hindus would have pre- 
ferred anything to a Mohammedan bigot. The 
Rajput princes only wanted to be let alone. The 
Deccan would never have troubled Hindustan if 
Hindustan had not invaded it. Probably any other 
Moghul prince would have followed in the steps of 
the kings his forefathers, and emulated the indolence 
and vice of the court in which he had received his 
earliest impressions. 

' Aurangzib did none of these things. For the 
first time in their history the Moghuls beheld a rigid 
Muslim in their emperor — a Muslim as sternly re- 
pressive of himself as of the people around him, a 
king who was prepared to stake his throne for the 
sake of the faith. He must have known that com- 
promise and conciliation formed the easiest and 
safest policy in an empire composed of hetero- 
geneous elements of race and religion. He was no 
youthful enthusiast when he ascended the throne at 



THE PURITAN EMPEROR 363 

Delhi, but a ripe man of forty, deeply experienced 
in the policies and prejudices of the various sections 
of his subjects. He must have been fully conscious 
of the dangerous path he was pursuing, and well 
aware that to run a-tilt against every Hindu senti- 
ment, to alienate his Persian adherents, the flower 
of his general staff, by deliberate opposition to their 
cherished ideas, and to disgust his nobles by sup- 
pressing the luxury of a jovial court, was to invite 
revolution. Yet he chose this course, and adhered 
to it with unbending resolve through close on fifty 
years of unchallenged sovereignty. The flame of 
religious zeal blazed as hotly in his soul when he lay 
dying among the ruins of his Grand Army of the 
Deccan, an old man on the verge of ninety, as when, 
in the same fatal province, but then a youth in the 
springtime of life, he had thrown off the purple of 
viceregal state and adopted the mean garb of a 
mendicant fakir. 

* All this he did out of no profound scheme of 
poHcy, but from sheer conviction of right. Aurang- 
zib was born with an indomitable resolution. He 
had early formed his ideal of life, and every spring 
of his vigorous will was stretched at full tension in 
the effort to attain it. His was no ordinary courage. 
That he was physically brave is only to say he was a 
Moghul prince of the old lion-hearted stock. But 
he was among the bravest even in their valiant rank. 
In the crisis of the campaign in Balkh, when the 
enemy ** like locusts and ants " hemmed him in on 
every side, and steel was clashing all around him, 
the setting sun heralded the hour of evening prayer: 



364 MEDL^VAL INDIA 

Aurangzib, unmoved amid the din of battle, dis- 
mounted and bowed himself on the bare ground in 
the complicated ritual of Islam, as composedly as if 
he had been performing the rik'a in the mosque at 
Agra. The king of the Uzbegs noted the action, 
and exclaimed, " To fight with such a man is self- 
destruction ! " ' ^ 

We may read Aurangzib's ideal of enlightened 
kingship in his reply to one of the nobles who remon- 
strated with him on his incessant application to affairs 
of state : ' I was sent into the world by Providence,' 
he said, * to live and labour, not for myself, but for 
others ; it is my duty not to think of my own happi- 
ness, except so far as it is inseparably connected 
with the happiness of my people. It is the repose 
and prosperity of my subjects that it behooves me to 
consult ; nor are these to be sacrificed to anything 
besides the demands of justice, the maintenance of 
the royal authority, and the security of the state. . . . 
It was not without reason that our great Sa'di em- 
phatically exclaimed, " Cease to be Kings ! Oh^ 
cease to be Kings ! Or deter^nine that your dominions 
shall be governed only by yourselves'' "* In the same 
spirit he wrote to Shah-Jahan : 'Almighty God be- 
stows his trusts upon him who discharges the duty 
of cherishing his subjects and protecting the people. 
It is manifest and clear to the wise that a wolf is no 
fit shepherd, neither can a faint-hearted man carry 
out the great duty of government. Sovereignty is 
the guardianship of the people, not self-indulgence 

^ Lane-Poole, Aurangzib, 65, ff. 
^ Bernier, 130, 144. 



THE PURITAN EMPEROR 365 

and profligacy.' And these were not merely fine 
sentiments but ruling principles. No act of injustice, 
according to the law of Islam, at least after his ac- 
cession, has been proved against him. Ovington, who 
was informed by Aurangzib's least partial critics, the 
English merchants at Bombay and Surat, says that 
the Great Mogul is ' the main ocean of justice. . . . 
He generally determines with exact justice and 
equity ; for there is no pleading of peerage or privi- 
lege before the emperor, but the meanest man is as 
soon heard by Aurangzib as the chief Omrah : 
which makes the Omrahs very circumspect of their 
actions and punctual in their payments." A native 
chronicler tells us that the emperor was a mild and 
painstaking judge, easy of approach and gentle of 
manner: and the same character is given him by Dr 
Careri, who was with him in the Deccan in 1695. So 
mild indeed was his rule that ' throughout the im- 
perial dominions no fear and dread of punishment 
remained in the hearts ' of the provincial district 
ofiflcials, and the result was a state of corruption and 
misgovernment worse than had ever been known 
under the shrewd but kindly eye of Shah-Jahan.'^ 

Yet his habit of mind did not lend itself to trust- 
ing his officials and ministers overmuch, whether 
they were efficient or corrupt. He was no believer 
in delegated authority ; and the lessons in treachery 
which the history of his dynasty afforded, and in 
which he had himself borne a part during the war 
of succession, sank deep into a mind naturally prone 

^ Ovington, Voyage to Suratt in the Year i68g (Lond. 1696), 198. 
2 Khafi Khan, in Elliot and Dowson, vii, 246-S. 



366 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

to suspicion. That he Hved in dread of poison is 
only what many Moghul princes endured : he had of 
course a taster, and Ovington says that his physician 
had to * lead the way, take pill for pill, dose for 
dose,' that the emperor might see their operation 
upon the body of the doctor before he ventured him- 
self. His father had done the like before him. Like 
him Aurangzib was served by a large staff of offi- 
cial reporters, who sent regular letters to keep the 
Great Moghul informed of all that went on in the 
most distant as well as the nearest districts. He 
treated his sons as he treated his nobles ; imprisoned 
his eldest for life, and kept his second son in captiv- 
ity for six years upon a mere suspicion of disloyalty. 
He had good reason to know the danger of a son's 
rebellion, but this general habit of distrust was 
fatal to his popularity. Good Muslims have often 
extolled his virtues ; but the mass of his courtiers 
and officers lived in dread of arousing his suspicion, 
and, while they feared, resented his distrustful scrut- 
iny. Aurangzib was universally respected, but he 
was never loved. 

* Simple of life and ascetic as he was by disposi- 
tion, Aurangzib could not altogether do away with 
the pomp and ceremony of a court which had at- 
tained the pinnacle of splendour under his magnificent 
father. In private life it was possible to observe 
the rigid rules and practise the privations of a 
saint : but in public the emperor must conform to 
the precedents set by his royal ancestors from the 
days of Akbar, and hold his state with all the im- 
posing majesty which had been so dear to Shah- 



AURANGZIB 367 

Jahan. A Great Moghul without gorgeous darbars, 
dazzling jewels, a glittering assemblage of armed and 
richly habited courtiers, and all the pageantry of 
royal state, would have been inconceivable or con- 
temptible to a people who had been accustomed for 
centuries to worship and delight in the glorious 
spectacle of august monarch enthroned amid a blaze 
of splendour.' Among orientals especially the 
clothes make the king. 

'" The emperor divided his residence between 
Delhi and Agra, but Delhi was the chief capital, 
where most of the state ceremonies took place. 
Agra had been the metropolis of Akbar, and usually 
of Jahangir: but its sultry climate interfered with 
the enjoyment of their luxurious successor, and the 
court was accordingly removed, at least for a large 
part of the year, to New Delhi, the ** City of Shah- 
Jahan." The ruins of this splendid capital, its 
mosques, and the noble remains of its superb 
palace are familiar to every reader. To see it as it 
was in its glory, however, we must look through 
the eyes of Bernier, who saw it when only eleven 
years had passed since its completion. His de- 
scription was written at the capital itself in 1663, 
after he had spent four years of continuous resid- 
ence there ; so it may be assumed that he knew 
his Delhi thoroughly. 

' The city,' he tells us, ' was built in the form of 
a crescent on the right bank of the Jumna, which 
formed its north-eastern boundary, and was crossed 
by a single bridge of boats. The flat surround- 
ing country was then, as now, richly wooded and 



368 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

cultivated, and the city was famous for its luxuriant 
gardens. The circuit of the walls was six or seven 
miles ; but outside the gates were extensive suburbs, 
where the chief nobles and wealthy merchants had 
their luxurious houses ; and there also were the de- 
cayed and straggling remains of the older city just 
without the walls of its supplanter. Numberless 
narrow streets intersected this wide area, and dis- 
played every variety of building, from the thatched 
mud and bamboo huts of the troopers and camp-fol- 
lowers, and the clay or brick houses of the smaller 
officials and merchants, to the spacious mansions 
of the chief nobles, with their courtyards and 
gardens, fountains and cool matted chambers, open 
to the four winds, where the afternoon siesta might 
be enjoyed during the heats. Two main streets, 
perhaps thirty paces wide and very long and straight, 
lined with covered arcades of shops, led into the 
"great royal square" which fronted the fortress or 
palace of the emperor. This square was the meet- 
ing-place of the citizens and the army, and the 
scene of varied spectacles. Here the Rajput rajas 
pitched their tents when it was their duty to mount 
guard ; for Rajputs never consented to be cooped 
up within Moghul walls. Beyond was the fortress, 
which contained the emperor's palace and mahall 
or seraglio, and comm.anded a view of the river 
across the sandy tract where the elephant fights 
took place and the rajas' troops paraded. The 
lofty walls were slightly fortified with battlements 
and towers and surrounded by a moat, and small 
field pieces were pointed upon the town from 




w 

D 
C 

C/3 

o 

< 



O 



370 medijeval India 

the embrasures. The palace within was the most 
magnificent building of its kind in the East, and 
the private rooms or niaJiall alone covered more 
than twice the space of any European palace. 
Streets opened in every direction, and here and 
there were seen the merchants' caravanserais and 
the great workshops where the artisans employed by 
the emperor and the nobles plied their hereditary 
crafts of embroidery, silver and gold smithery, gun- 
making, lacquer-work, painting, turning, and so forth. 
' Delhi was famous for its skill in the arts and 
crafts. It was only under royal or aristocratic 
patronage that the artist flourished ; elsewhere the 
artisan was at the mercy of his temporary employer, 
who paid him as he chose. The Moghul emperors 
displayed a laudable appreciation of the fine arts, 
which they employed Avith lavish hands in the 
decoration of their palaces. A large number of 
exquisite miniatures, or paintings on paper designed 
to illustrate manuscripts or to form royal portrait- 
albums, have come down to us from the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries. The technique and detail are 
admirable, and the colouring and lights often aston- 
ishingly skilful. They include portraits of the emper- 
ors, princes, and chief nobles, which display unusual 
power in the delineation of individual countenances ; 
and there are landscapes which are happily con- 
ceived and briUiantly executed. There is no doubt 
that the Jesuit missions at Agra and other cities 
of Hindustan brought western ideas to bear upon 
the development of Indian painting. Jahangir, who 
was by his own account, " very fond of pictures 



{ 



PAINTING 



371 



and an excellent judge of them," is recorded 
to have had a picture of the Madonna behind a 
curtain, and this picture is represented in a con- 




LATTICE IN BATHROOM OF SHAH-JAHAN'S PALACE AT DELHI. 

temporary painting which has fortunately been 
preserved.' Tavernier saw on a gate outside Agra 

' In the collection of Colonel H. B, Hanna. 



3/2 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

a representation of Jahangir's tomb '' carved with a 
great black pall with many torches of white wax, 
and two Jesuit Fathers at the end," and adds that 
Shah-Jahan allowed this to remain because ** his 
father and himself had learnt from the Jesuits some 
principles of mathematics and astrology." ^ The 
Augustinian Manrique, who came to inspect the 
Jesuit missions in the time of Shah-Jahan, found, as 
we have seen, the prime minister Asaf Khan at La- 
hore in a palace decorated with pictures of Christian 
saints. In most Moghul portraits, the head of the 
emperor is surrounded by an aureole or nimbus, and 
many other features in the schools of painting at Agra 
and Delhi remind one of contemporary Italian art. 
The artists were held in high favour at court, and 
many of their names have been preserved. Their 
works added notably to the decoration of the 
splendid and elaborate palaces which are amongst 
the most durable memorials of the period.' 

The scene in the Hall of Audience on any great 
occasion was almost impressive enough to justify 
the inscription on the gateway : ' If there be a 
Heaven upon earth, it is here, it is here.' The 
emperor's approach was heralded by the shrill pip- 
ing of the hautboys and clashing of cymbals from 
the band-gallery over the great gate : — 

* The king appeared seated upon his throne at the 
end of the great hall in the most magnificent attire. 
His vest was of white and delicately flowered satin, 
with a silk and gold embroidery of the finest texture. 
The turban of gold cloth had an aigrette whose base 

^ Ti'avels, i., iii. 



374 MEDI.^:VAL INDIA 

was composed of diamonds of an extraordinary size 
and value, besides an oriental topaz which may be 
pronounced unparalleled, exhibiting a lustre like the 
sun. A necklace of immense pearls suspended from 
his neck reached to the stomach. The throne was 
supported by six massy feet, said to be of solid gold, 
sprinkled over with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. 
It was constructed by Shah- Jahan for the purpose of 
displaying the immense quantity of precious stones 
accumulated successively in the treasury from the 
spoils of ancient rajas and Patans, and the annual 
presents to the monarch which every Omrah is 
bound to make on certain festivals. At the foot of 
the throne were assembled all the Omrahs, in splen- 
did apparel, upon a platform surrounded by a silver 
railing and covered by a spacious canopy of brocade 
with deep fringes of gold. The pillars of the hall 
were hung with brocades of a gold ground, and 
flowered satin canopies were raised over the whole 
expanse of the extensive apartment, fastened with 
red silken cords from which were suspended large 
tassels of silk and gold. The floor was covered en- 
tirely with carpets of the richest silk, of immense 
length and breadth. A tent, called the aspek, was 
pitched outside [in the court], larger than the hall, 
to which it joined by the top. It spread over half 
the court, and was completely enclosed by a great 
balustrade, covered with plates of silver. Its sup- 
porters were pillars over-laid with silver, three of 
which were as thick and as high as the mast of 
barque, the others smaller. The outside of this' 
magnificent tent was red, and the inside lined withJ 



THE COURT 375 

elegant MasuHpatan chintzes, figured expressly for 
that very purpose with flowers so natural and 
colours so vivid that the tent seemed to be en- 
compassed with real parterres. As to the arcade 
galleries round the court, every Omrah had received 
orders to decorate one of them at his own expense, 
and there appeared a spirit of emulation who should 
best acquit himself to the monarch's satisfaction. 
Consequently all the arcades and galleries were cov- 
ered from top to bottom with brocade, and the 
pavement with rich carpets.' ^ 

Aurangzib maintained the old Moghul custom on 
his birthday of being solemnly weighed in a pair of 
gold scales against precious metals and stones and 
food, when the nobles one and all came with offer- 
ings of jewels and gold, sometimes to the value of 
^2,000,000. The festivals often ended with the 
national sport, an elephant-fight. ' Two elephants 
charged each other over an earth wall, which they 
soon demolished ; their skulls met with a tremen- 
dous shock, and tusks and trunks were vigorously 
plied, till at length one was overcome by the other, 
when the victor was separated from his prostrate 
adversary by an explosion of fireworks between 
them. In the jovial days of Jahangir and Shah- 
Jahan, the bloom.ing Kenchens or Nautch girls used 
to play a prominent part in the court festivities, and 
would keep the jolly emperors awake half the night 
with their voluptuous dances and agile antics ; but 
Aurangzib was "unco guid " and would as soon 
tolerate idolatry as a Nautch.' 

^ Bernier, 270, 



376 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

^ Even on every day occasions, when there were 
no festivals in progress, the Hall of Audience pre- 
sented an animated appearance. Not a day passed 
but the emperor held his levee from the jharukha 
window, whilst the bevy of nobles stood beneath, 
and the common crowd surged in the court to lay 
their grievances and suits before the imperial judge. 
The ordinary levee lasted a couple of hours, and 
during this time the royal stud was brought from 
the stables opening out of the court, and passed in 
review before the emperor, so many each day ; and 
the household elephants, washed and painted black, 
with two red streaks on their foreheads, came in 
their embroidered caparisons and silver chains and 
bells, to be inspected by their master, and at the 
prick and voice of their riders saluted the emperor 
with their trunks and trumpeted their taslim or 
homage.' 

These gorgeous ' functions ' had little interest for 
Aurangzib. The art of government was his real 
passion. Of course, with his mixed and jarring pop- 
ulation of Hindus, Rajputs, Patans, and Persians, to 
say nothing of opponents in the Deccan, his first 
necessity was a standing army. He could indeed 
rely upon the friendly rajas to take the field with 
their gallant followers against the Shi'a kingdom in 
the Deccan, or in Afghanistan, and even against 
their fellow Rajputs, when the imperial cause hap- 
pened to coincide with their private feuds. He 
could trust the Persian officers in a conflict with 
Patans or Hindus, though never against their Shi'a 
corehgionists in the Deccan. But he needed a force 



THE OMRAHS 377 

devoted to himself alone, a body of retainers who 
looked to him for rank and wealth, and even for the 
bare means of subsistence. This he found in the 
species of feudal system which had been inaugurated 
by Akbar. He endeavoured to bind to his personal 
interest a body of adventurers, generally of low de- 
scent, who derived their power and affluence solely 
from their sovereign, who ' raised them to dignity 
or degraded them to obscurity according to his own 
pleasure and caprice.' 

The writings of European travellers are full of 
reference to these ' Omrahs ' (amirs) or * nobles,' as 
they call them — though it must not be forgotten 
that the nobility was purely official and had no 
necessary connexion with birth or hereditary estates. 
In Bernier's time there were always twenty-five or 
thirty of the highest amirs at the court, drawing sala- 
ries estimated at the rate of one thousand to twelve 
thousand horse. The number in the provinces is 
not stated, but must have been great, besides in- 
numerable petty vassals of less than a thousand 
horse, of whom there were ' never less than two 
or three hundred at court.' The troopers who 
formed the following of the amirs and mansabdars 
were entitled to the pay of 25 rupees a month for 
each horse, but did not always get it from their 
masters. Two horses to a man formed the usual 
allowance, for a one-horsed trooper was regarded as 
little better than a one-legged man. The cavalry 
arm supplied by the amirs and lesser vassals and 
their retainers formed the chief part of the Moghul 
standing army, and, including the troops of the 



3/8 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Rajput rajas, who were also in receipt of an imperial 
subsidy, amounted in effective strength to more than 
200,000 in Bernier's time (1659-66), of whom perhaps 
40,000 were about the emperor's person. The regu- 
lar infantry was of small account ; the musketeers 
could only fire decently 'when squatting on the 
ground, and resting their muskets on a kind of 
wooden fork which hangs to them,* and were terribly 
afraid of burning their beards or bursting their 
guns. There were about 50,000 of this arm about 
the court, besides a larger number in the provinces ; 
but the hordes of camp-followers, sutlers, grooms, 
traders and servants, who always hung about the 
army, and were often absurdly reckoned as part of 
its effective strength, gave the impression of an in- 
fantry force of two or three hundred thousand men- 
There was also a small park of artillery, consisting 
partly of heavy guns, and partly of lighter pieces 
mounted on camels. 

The emperor kept the control of the army and 
nobles in his own hands by this system of grants of 
land or money in return for military service ; and the 
civil administration was governed on the same 
principle. The inafisab and jagir system pervaded 
the whole empire. The govenors of provinces were 
mansabdars, and received grants of land in lieu of 
salary for the maintenance of their state and their 
troops, and were required to pay about a fifth of the 
revenue to the emperor. All the land in the realm 
was thus parcelled out among a number of tima- 
riots, who were practically absolute in their own dis- 
tricts, and extorted the uttermost farthing from 



THE OMRAHS ,^fg 

the wretched peasantry who tilled their lands. The 
only exceptions were the royal demesnes, and these 
were farmed out to contractors who had all the vices 
without the distinction of the mansabdars. As it 
was always the policy of the Moghuls to shift the 
vassal-lords frequently from one estate to another, 
in order to prevent their acquiring a permanent 
local influence and prestige, the same disastrous re- 
sults ensued as in the precarious appointments of 
Turkey. Each governor or feudatory sought to 
extort as much as possible out of his province or 





GOLD COIN OF AURANGZIB, STRUCK AT THATTA, 
A.H. 1072 (A.D. 1661-2). 

jagir, in order to have capital in hand when he 
should be transplanted or deprived, and in the re- 
moter parts of the empire the rapacity of the land- 
holders went on almost unchecked. The peasantry 
and working classes, and even the better sort of 
merchants, used every precaution to hide such small 
prosperity as they might enjoy ; they dressed and 
lived meanly, and suppressed all inclinations to- 
wards social ambitions. 

Whether we look at the mihtaryor the civil side 
of the system, the Moghul domination in India was 
even more like an army of occupation than the 



380. MED]j^^,VAL INDIA 

'camp' to which the Ottoman Empire has been 
compared. As Bernier says, ' The Great Moghul is 
a foreigner in Hindustan : he finds himself in a hos- 
tile country, or nearly so ; a country containing 
hundreds of Gentiles to one Moghul, or even to one 
Mohammedan.' Hence his large armies; his net- 
work of governors and landholders dependent upon 
him alone for dignity and support ; hence, too, a 
policy which sacrificed the welfare of the people to 
the supremacy of an armed minority. Yet it pre- 
served internal peace and secured the authority of 
the throne, and we read of few disturbances or 
insurrections in all the half-century of Aurangzib's 
reign. Such wars as were waged were either unim- 
portant campaigns of aggression outside the normal 
limits of the empire, or were deliberately provoked 
by the emperor's intolerance. Mir Jumla's disas- 
trous expedition against Assam was like many other 
attempts to subdue the north-east frontagers of 
India. The rains and the guerrilla tactics of the 
enemy drove the Moghul army to despair, and its 
gallant leader died on his return in the spring of 
1663. The war in Arakan had more lasting effects. 
That kingdom had long been a standing menace to 
Bengal, and a cause of loss and dread to the traders 
at the mouths of the Ganges. Every kind of crimi- 
nal from Goa or Ceylon, Cochin or Malacca, mostly 
Portuguese or half-castes, flocked to Chittagong, 
where the king of Arakan, delighted to welcome any 
sort of allies against his formidable neighbour the 
Moghul, permitted them to settle. They soon de- 
veloped a busy trade in piracy ; * scoured the neigh- 



ARAKAN PIRATES 38 1 

bouring seas in light galleys, called galleasses, en- 
tered the numerous arms and branches of the Ganges, 
ravaged the islands of Lower Bengal, and, often 
penetrating forty or fifty leagues up the country, 
surprised and carried away the entire population of 
villages. The marauders made slaves of their un- 
happy captives, and burnt whatever could not be 
removed.'^ The Portuguese at Hugli abetted these 
rascals by purchasing whole cargoes of cheap slaves, 
and, as we have seen, were punished by Shah-Jahan, 
who took their town and carried the relics of the 
population as prisoners to Agra (163 1). But though 
the Portuguese power no longer availed them, the 
pirates went on with their rapine, and carried on 
operations with even greater vigour from the island 
of Sandip, off Chittagong, where ' the notorious Fra 
Joan, an Augustinian monk, reigned as a petty 
sovereign during many years, having contrived, God 
knows how, to rid himself of the governor of the 
island.* 

When Shaylsta Khan, Aurangzib's uncle, came as 
governor to Bengal in succession to Mir Jumla, he 
judged it high time to put a stop to these exploits. 
The pirates submitted to the summons of the new 
viceroy (1666), backed by the support of the Dutch, 
who were pleased to diminish the failing power of 
Portugal. The bulk of the freebooters were settled 
under control at a place a few miles below Dhakka, 
hence called Firengi-bazar, ' the mart of the Franks,' 
where some of their descendants still live. Shayista 
then sent an expedition against Arakan and annexed 
*Bernier, 174-182. 



382 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

it, changing the name of Chittagong into Islama- 
bad, * the city of Islam.' He could not foresee that 
in suppressing the pirates h^ was aiding the rise of 
that future power whose humble beginnings were 
seen in the little factory established by the English 
at the Hugh in 1640. Twenty years after the sup- 
pression of the Portuguese, Charnock defeated the 
local militia, and in 1690 received from Aurangzib a 
grant of land at Sutanati, which he forthwith cleared 
and fortified. Such was the modest foundation of 
Calcutta. 




CHAPTER XV 



THE RUIN OF AURANGZIB 



THE MARATHA WAR 



I 680- I 707 

A PROFOUND tranquility, broken by no re- 
bellion of any political importance, reigned 
throughout northern India for the first twenty years 
of Aurangzib's rule/ So far there had been no serious 
persecution, no religious disabilities : but there can be 
no doubt that Aurangzib was only nursing his zeal for 
the faith, until it should be safe to display it against 
the unbelievers. Indeed there were signs of the com- 
ing storm as early as 1669. In April of that year he 
was informed that the Brahmans of Benares and 
other Hindu centres were in the habit of teaching 
their ' wicked sciences,' not only to their own people, 
but to Muslims. This was more than the orthodox 
emperor could tolerate ; the temple of Vishnu at 
Benares was destroyed, and the splendid shrine at 
Mathura razed to the ground to make room for a 

^The following pages are abridged from my life of Aurangzib, ch. 
viii-xii (Clarendon Press, 1893). 

383 



384 MEDIy^VAL INDIA 

magnificent mosque. The idols were brought to Agra 
and buried under the steps of the mosque, so that 
good MusHms might have the satisfaction of treading 
them underfoot. Three years later the fanaticism of 
the Hindus found vent in an insurrection in Mewat 
of four or five thousand devotees, who called them- 
selves Satnamis, which gave the imperial officers no 
little trouble to subdue. The neighbouring Rajputs 
and other Hindus began to become infected with 
the spirit of rebellion, and every day saw fresh addi- 
tions to the strength of the rioters. The Satnamis 
fought with the courage of despair and the exalta- 
tion of martyrs, but the end was not doubtful : 
thousands were slain ; and the revolt was suppressed. 
The next step in the policy of persecution was the 
re-imposition of the hated jizya, or poll-tax on un- 
believers, a few years later. In vain the people 
wailed and cursed around the palace. Aurangzib 
had by this time abandoned the salutary custom of 
appearing at stated hours before his subjects at the 
levee window : the adulation of the multitude sav- 
oured of idolatry to his puritanical mind. But 
seclude himself as he might — and thereby lose the 
sensitive touch of the populace which had been his 
father's strength — he could not shut his eyes to the 
uproar which the new enactment excited. When 
he went to the mosque, crowds of expostulating and 
even riotous Hindus blocked his way ; and though 
his elephants forced their path over their bodies, he 
could not subdue their repugnance to the new tax 
on religion. His dealings with the Rajput princes 
kindled these sparks of discontent into a flame. He 



RAJPUT REVOLT 385 

endeavoured to get Jaswant Singh's two young 
sons sent to Delhi to be educated (and doubtless 
made Muslims) under his own supervision. The 
Rajputs* loyalty and pride alike forbade such igno- 
miny to their hereditary chiefs; and when they 
learned that the ancient law of Mohammad was re- 
vived which imposed a tax upon every soul who did 
not conform to Islam — a tax which Akbar had dis- 
dained, and Shah-Jahan had not dared to think of — 
their indignation knew no bounds. They repudiated 
the religious tax, and they contrived to spirit away 
the infant princes of Marwar out of the emperor's 
reach. 

It was the first serious rebellion during the reign, 
and its provoker little realized the effects which his 
fanatical policy would produce. He marched at 
once upon Rajputana, where he found two out of 
the three leading States, Udaipur (Mewar) and 
Jodhpur (Marwar) united against him, and only 
Raja Ram Singh of Jaipur (Amber) still loyal to the 
empire. The Rajputs kept 25,000 horse, mostly 
Rahtors of Jodhpur, in the field, and although fre- 
quently driven into their mountains were never 
really subdued. At one time they seemed to be 
at the point of a decisive victory, and the emperor's 
cause appeared lost. Directing operations from Aj- 
mir, he had placed his main body under his fourth 
son Akbar, at the same time calling up his elder 
sons Mu'azzam and A'zam with their contingents 
from their commands in the Deccan and Bengal. 
The three princes were busy ravaging the Rajput 
country, and Aurangzib was left at Ajmir with hardly 

25 



386 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

a thousand men, when tidings came that Prince Ak- 
bar had been seduced by the diplomacy of the 
Rajput leaders, had gone over with the main army 
to the enemy, and proclaimed himself emperor of 
India; nay, more, he was now marching upon his 
father at the head of 70,000 men. But the prestige, 
or the diplomacy, of Aurangzib was more than a 
match for the rebels. The Moghul deserters flocked 
back to the imperial standard ; the Rajput army 
melted away ; and Prince Akbar, with a following of 
500 men, fled to the Deccan, whence he eventually 
sailed for Persia, and never again set foot in the 
realm of his fathers (1681). 

The Rajput snake was scotched, but far from 
killed. The insults which had been offered to their 
chiefs and their religion, the ruthless and unneces- 
sary severity of Aurangzib's campaigns in their 
country, left a sore which never healed. The war 
went on. The Moghuls ravaged the rich lands of 
Udaipur, and the Rajputs retaliated by pulling 
down mosques and insulting the Muslims. The 
cities were indeed in the hands of Aurangzib, but 
the mountain defiles were thronged with implacable 
foes, who lost no opportunity of dealing a blow at 
the invaders. The rana of Udaipur, the chief suf- 
ferer on the Rajput side, succeeded at last in making 
an honourable peace with the emperor, who was 
tired of the struggle and anxious to give his whole 
mind to the affairs of the Deccan. But while the 
treaty enabled Aurangzib to beat a fairly creditable 
retreat, it did not appease the indignant Rajputs of 
the west; even the rana of Udaipur soon rode his 



RAJPUT REVOLT 387 

elephants through the treaty ; and all Rajputana, 
save Jaipur and the eastern parts, was perpetually 
in a state of revolt until the end of the reign. Tan- 
turn religio potuit / But for his tax upon heresy, 
and his interference with their inborn sense of dig- 
nity and honour, Aurangzib might have still kept 
the Rajputs by his side as priceless allies in the long 
struggle in which he was now to engage in the Dec- 
can. As it was, he alienated them forever. So long 
as the great Puritan sat on the throne of Akbar, not 
a Rajput would stir a finger to save him. Aurangzib 
had to fight his southern foes with the loss of his 
right arm. 

* Delhi is distant,' says an old Deccan proverb, 
and many an Indian king has realized its force when 
grappling with the ineradicable contumacy of his 
southern province. The Deccan (Dakhin, Dak-han, 
* the South') was never intended by nature to have 
any connexion with Hindustan. The Vindhya and 
Satpura mountains and the Narbada river form a 
triple line of natural barricades, which divide the 
high table-land of Central India from the plains of 
the Ganges and its tributaries, and should have 
warned the sovereigns of Delhi that it was wiser to 
keep to their own country. But the Deccan lands 
were fertile; their wealth in diamonds and gold was 
fabulous; and every great ruler of the northern 
plains has turned his eyes to the mountain barriers 
and longed to enter the land of promise beyond. 
They entered, however, at their peril. To conquer 
the Deccan was risking the loss of Hindustan ; for 
he who invaded the southern people who dwelt 



388 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

between the Ghats was but teaching them the road 
to the north. 

The affairs of the Deccan were no new thing to a 
prince who had twice been viceroy there, but some 
years passed before the initial dif^culties of settling 
his kingdom left the new emperor leisure to attend 
to the southern province. Meanwhile a new power 
had arisen, a power which sprang from such needy 
and insignificant beginnings that no one could have 
foretold its future malignant domination. The Ma- 
rathas began to make themselves felt. 

This notorious Hindu people inhabited the country 
lying between the Indian Ocean and the river War- 
da ; their northern boundary was the Satpura range, 
and on the west coast they extended as far south as 
Goa. Their strength lay in the inaccessible fast- 
nesses of the Western Ghats, which climb precipit- 
ously to the great plateau that stretches right across 
the Deccan to the Bay of Bengal. Between the 
Ghats and the sea lies the Konkan, where deep 
valleys and torrent-beds lead from the rocks and 
forests of the mountain ridge to the fertile plains of 
the humid tract near the sea, where the torrents 
merge in sandy creeks among thickets of mangroves. 
The Ghats and the Konkan were the safe retreats of 
wild beasts and wiry Marathas. 

These people had never made any mark in history 
before the reign of Shah-Jahan. They were peaceful 
frugal husbandmen, like the mass of the lower orders 
of Hindus, and gave no trouble. Their chiefs, or 
village headmen, were Sudras, of the lowest of the 
four castes, like their people, though they pretended 



SlVAJI THE MARATHA 389 

to connect themselves with the noble caste of Ksha- 
triyas. In the silent times of peace, the Marathas 
enjoyed the happiness of the nation that has no 
history. War brought out their dormant capacities, 
and their daggers soon cut tlieir name deep in the 
annals of India. The king of Bijapur was responsible 
for educating this hardy race for their career of 
rapine. They formed a large proportion of his sub- 
jects, and their language, an offshoot of Sanskrit, 
became the official script of the revenue department 
of his kingdom. Gradually they came to be em- 
ployed in his army, first in garrison duty, and then 
in the light cavalry, a branch of service for which 
they displayed extraordinary aptitude. Some of 
them rose to offices of importance at Bijapur and 
Golkonda. One of these officers, Shahji Bhosla, 
once a rebel against Shah-Jahan in the Konkan 
(1634) and afterwards governor of Poona and Banga- 
lore, was the father of Sivaji, the founder of the 
Maratha power. 

Sivaji was eight years younger than his great ad- 
versary Aurangzib. He was brought up at Poona, 
where he was noted for his courage and shrewdness. 
He mixed with the wild highlanders of the neigh- 
bouring Ghats, and, listening to their native ballads 
and tales of adventure, soon fell in love with their 
free and reckless mode of life, and learned every 
turn and path of the Konkan. He found that the hill 
forts were miserably garrisoned by the Bijapur gov- 
ernment, and he resolved upon seizing them and in- 
augurating an era of brigandage on an heroic scale. 
He began by surprising the castle of Torna, some 



390 MEDIy^VAL INDIA 

twenty miles from Poona, and after adding fortress 
to fortress at the expense of the Bijapur kingdom, 
without attracting much notice, crowned his iniquity 
in 1648 by making a convoy of royal treasure 'bail 
up,' and by occupying the whole of the northern 
Konkan. Presently his rule extended on the sea 
coast from Kaliani in the north to the neighbour- 
hood of Portuguese Goa, a distance of over 250 
miles ; east of the Ghats it reached to Mirich on the 
Krishna ; and its breadth in some parts was as much 
as 100 miles. It was not a vast dominion, but it 
supported an army of over 50,000 men, and it had 
been built up with incredible patience and daring. 

He had no anxiety on the score of his eastern 
neighbour, the King of Bijapur, whose troops he 
routed and whose lands he plundered at his will ; 
and he now longed for fresh fields of rapine. The 
Hindus had become his friends, or bought his favour, 
and offered few occasions for pillage. He therefore 
turned to the Moghul territory to the north, and 
pushed his raids almost to the gates of Auranga- 
bad, the ' Throne City.' Several times Aurangzib 
changed his generals, but still the indomitable Ma- 
rathas baffled their skill, surprised their quarters, 
sacked Surat — though Sir George Oxenden beat 
them off the English factory — and even stopped 
the ships full of pilgrims for Mekka that were sailing 
from the port. For a moment indeed there was 
peace. Serious losses induced Sivaji to make terms 
and even to appear at Delhi as the emperor's vassal. 
The sturdy little 'mountain rat' however was out 
of his element at the splendid court of the Great 



392 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Moghul, and Aurangzib treated him with undis- 
guised contempt. Seldom was poHtical sagacity 
more at fault. The rude highlander, who might 
have been converted into a powerful prop of the 
empire in the Deccan, was allowed to escape in 
disguise, affronted and enraged, to resume his old 
sway in the mountains (1666). Too late the emperor 
attempted conciliation : the old antagonist had be- 
come a personal enemy, and nothing could sooth 
his resentment. His return to the Deccan was 
followed by a series of triumphs. Surat was again 
sacked (1671), and the Maratha swarms spread 
southerly past Madras to Tanjore, levying black- 
mail wherever they went. Just as he was meditating 
still greater aggrandizement, a sudden illness put an 
end to his extraordinary career in 1680, when he 
was not quite fifty-three years of age. The date of 
his death is found in the words Kafir ba jahannam 
raft, ' The Infidel went to Hell.' ' 

' Sivaji always strove to maintain the honour of 
the people in his territories,' says a Mohammedan 
historian. ' He persisted in rebellion, plundering 
caravans, and troubling mankind ; but he was abso- 
lutely guiltless of baser sins, and was scrupulous of 
the honour of women and children of the Muslims 
when they fell into his hands.' Aurangzib himself 
admitted that his foe was ' a great captain ' ; and 
added, * My armies have been employed against him 

^ Khafi Khan is proud to be the discoverer of this chronogram. 
It is, of course, to be interpreted by the numerical values of the 
consonants: K 20, Alif i, F 80, R 200, B 2, J 3, H 5, N N 50, 50, 
R 200, F So, T 400 = 1091 A. H. (1680). 



THE MARATHAS 393 

for nineteen years, and nevertheless his state has 
always been increasing.' 

The great captain was dead, but his spirit lived in 
the nation he had created. Aurangzib never fully 
realized the strength of a nation of freebooters or 
the intolerable weariness of guerrilla warfare, but he 
at least saw that the time had come to trust no 
more generals but to take the quarrel into his own 
hands. At the close of 168 1 he arrived at Burhan- 
pur, and took command of the army. The emperor's 
first step was to endeavour to strike awe into the 
Marathas by sending his sons to scour the country. 
The enemy offered no opposition, and left their 
rugged country to punish the invaders. Prince 
Mu'azzam accordingly marched through the whole 
Konkan, and laid it vv^aste, and when he reached the 
end he found that he had hardly a horse fit to carry 
him, and that his men were marching afoot, half- 
starving. The enemy had cut down the grass, so 
that no fodder could be obtained, and when the 
Moghuls tried to victual the army by sea, the enemy 
intercepted the corn-ships. The rocks and forests 
of the Ghats had been quite as destructive to the 
cavalry as the spears of the Marathas. Fighting 
torrents and precipices, and enduring an unhealthy 
climate and scarcity of food, was an unprofitable 
business ; and the princes were ordered to converge 
upon Bijapur, whilst Aurangzib pushed forward to 
Ahmadnagar. 

As soon as the enemy's back was turned, Sivaji's 
son, Sambhaji, swiftly led his active little horsemen 
behind their flank, and crossing over to Khandesh 



394 MEDIyEVAL INDIA 

burned Burhanpur and set the whole countryside in 
a blaze. Before the Moghuls could get at them, 
they were safe again in their fastnesses in the Ghats. 
The stroke is typical of Maratha warfare. They 
never risked an engagement in the open field unless 
numbers made victory sure. When the heavy 
Moghul cavalry attacked them, these hardy little 
warriors, mounted on wiry steeds as inured to fatigue 
as themselves and splendidly broken in for their 
tactics, would instantly scatter in all directions, and 
observe the enemy from a neighbouring hill or wood, 
ready to cut off solitary horsemen, or surprise small 
parties in ambush ; and then, if the pursuers gave up 
the useless chase, in a moment the Marathas were 
upon them, hanging on their flanks, dispatching 
stragglers, and firing at close quarters into the un- 
wieldy mass. To fight such people was to do battle 
with the air or to strike blows upon water. The 
Moghul might hold as much ground as his camp and 
cities covered, but the rest of the Deccan was in the 
hands of the Marathas. 

Aurangzib's plan seems to have been, first, to cut 
off the Marathas' funds by exterminating the king- 
doms of Golkonda and Bijapur, which paid blackmail 
to the brigands ; and then to ferret the * mountain 
rats ' out of their holes. The first part of his pro- 
gramme was the less difficult. The old Deccan 
kingdoms were in no condition to offer serious resis- 
tance to Aurangzib's Grand Army. They might 
have been annexed long before, but for the selfish 
indolence of the Moghul generals. The Bijapuris 
indeed resorted to their usual tactics : laid waste 




a 



396 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

all the country round the capital till the Moghul 
army was half famished, and then hovered about its 
flanks and harassed its movements with a pertinacity 
worthy of Sivaji himself. In August, 1685, however, 
Aurangzib in person took command of the siege. 
Under his searching eye the work of intrenching 
and mining r'ound the six miles of ramparts went on 
heartily. A close blockade was established, and at 
last after more than a year's labour Bijapur 
was starved out in November, 1686. The old cap- 
ital of the Adil Shahs, once full of splendid palaces, 
became the home of the owl and jackal. It stands 
yet, a melancholy, silent ruin. Its beautiful mosques 
still raise their minarets above the stone walls, which 
are even now so inviolate that one might fancy one 
gazed upon a living city. Within, all is solitude and 
desolation. The 'Visiapur' which astounded so 
many travellers by its wealth and magnificence, was 
trampled under the foot of the puritan emperor, and 
fell to rise no more. 

Golkonda soon felt the loss of its protecting sister. 
It had always pushed forward its neighbour as a 
buffer to deaden the shock of the Moghul assaults. 
It had secretly subsidized Bijapur to enable it to 
defend itself against the Moghuls, and at the same 
time bribed the imperial officers to attack Bijapur 
rather than itself. In spite of its ingenuity, Gol- 
konda had been forced to bow the knee before 
Aurangzib in 1656, and had been growing more and 
more demoralized in the quarter of a century which 
had rolled by uneasily since then. Prince Mo'azzam 
besieged the capital in a half-hearted way in 1685, 



SIEGE OF GOLKONDA 397 

and then to his father's disgust consented to a treaty 
of peace. Nevertheless Aurangzib resolved to make 
an end of the Kutb Shah dynasty. Under cover of 
a pilgrimage to a holy shrine, he marched to Kul- 
barga, half-way to Golkonda. His hostile intentions 
were unmistakable. The wretched king, Abu-1- 
Hasan, knew that his fall was at hand. In vain he 
sent submissive messages to the emperor and laid 
his humble protestations of obedience at his feet : 
Aurangzib was relentless, and seeing that there was 
no hope of mercy the king of Golkonda prepared to 
die like a soldier. He cast off his sloth and luxury 
of life, and set about ordering his army and making 
ready for the siege of his citadel. 

In January, 1687, the enemy took ground at gun- 
shot range, and the leaguer began. Abu-1-Hasan 
had forty or fifty thousand horse outside the walls, 
which continually harassed the engineers, and the 
garrison plied their cannon and rockets with deadly 
effect upon the trenches. The defence was heroic ; 
frequent and furious were the sallies ; the fortress 
was well found in ammunition and provisions, and a 
ceaseless fire was kept up night and day from the 
gates and ramparts. At last the lines were pushed 
up to the fosse, and Aurangzib himself sewed the 
first sack that was to be filled with earth and thrown 
into the ditch. Heavy guns were mounted on earth- 
works to keep back the defenders, and an attempt 
was made to scale the walls by night. Some of the 
besiegers had already gained the ramparts, when a 
dog gave the alarm, and the garrison speedily dis- 
patched the climbers and threw down the ladders. 



398 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

Meanwhile famine was reducing the Moghul army 
to extremities. The friends of Golkonda, and 
especially the Marathas.of * that hell-dog* Sambhaji, 
laid the country waste; the season was dry, and 
there was a terrible scarcity of rice, grain, and fodder. 
Plague broke out in the camp, and many of the 
soldiers, worn out with hunger and misery, deserted 
to the enemy. When the rain came at last, it fell in 
torrents for three days, and washed away much of 
the entrenchments : upon which the besieged sallied 
out in force and killed many of the Moghuls, and 
took prisoners. The occasion seemed favourable for 
overtures of peace. Abu-1-Hasan showed his prison- 
ers the heaps of corn and treasure in the fort, and 
offered to pay an indemnity, and to supply the 
besieging army with grain, if the siege were raised. 
Aurangzib's answer was full of his old proud inflex- 
ible resolve: *Abu-l-Hasan must come to me with 
clasped hands, or he shall come bound : I will then 
consider what mercy I can show him.' Forthwith 
he ordered 50,000 fresh sacks from Berar to fill the 
moat. 

Where courage and perseverance failed, treason 
succeeded. Mines and assaults had been vainly 
tried against the heroic defenders of Golkonda: 
money and promises at last won the day. Many of 
the nobles of the city had from time to time gone 
over to the besiegers, and at length a bribe admitted 
the enemy. The Moghuls poured into the fortress 
and raised a shout of triumph. The only faithful 
amir, Abd-ar-Razzak, heard it, and leaping on a 
bare-backed horse, followed by a dozen retainers, 



FALL OF GOLKONDA 399 

galloped to the gate, through which the enemy were 
rushing. Covered with blood and reeling in his sad- 
dle, he fought his way out, and they found him next 
day lying senseless under a cocoa-nut tree, with more 
than seventy wounds.' 

Meanwhile the king had heard the shouts and 
groans, and knew that his hour was come. He went 
into the harim and tried to comfort the women, and 
then asking their pardon for his faults he bade them 
farewell, and taking his seat in the audience chamber 
waited calmly for his unbidden guests. He would 
not suffer his dinner hour to be postponed for such 
a trifle as the Moghul conquest. When the officers 
of Aurangzib appeared, he saluted them as became 
a king, and spoke to them in choice Persian. He 
then called for his horse and rode with them to 
Prince A'zam, who presented him to Aurangzib. 
The Great Moghul treated him with grave courtesy, 
as king to king, for the gallantry of his defence of 
Golkonda atoned for his many sins of the past. 
Then he was sent a prisoner to Daulatabad, where 
his ally of Bijapur was already a captive, and both 

^ He was the hero of the siege. Aurangzib said that had Abu-1- 
Hasan possessed but one more servant as loyal as this, the contest 
might have gone on much longer. He sent a European and a Hindu 
surgeon to attend to the wounded man, and rejoiced when after 
sixteen days he at last opened his eyes. He showered favours upon 
the hero's sons, but nothing could shake the loyalty of the father. 
Lying on his sick bed, he said that ' no man who had eaten salt of 
Abu-1-Hasan could enter the service of Aurangzib.' Among the 
universal self-seeking of the Moghul Court such faithfulness was 
rare indeed, and no one honoured it more sincerely than the em- 
peror who had never been disloyal to his standard of duty. 



400 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

their dynasties disappear from history. Aurangzib 
appropriated some seven millions sterling from the 
royal property of Golkonda. 

With the conquest of Golkonda and Bijapur, Au- 
rangzib considered himself master of the Deccan. 
Yet the direct result of this destruction of the only 
powers that made for order and some sort of settled 
government in the peninsula was to strengthen the 
hands of the Marathas. The majority of the vanq- 
uished armies naturally joined them and adopted 





GOLD COIN OF AURANGZIB, STRUCK AT BIJAPUR, 
A.H. 1099 (A.D. 16S7-8). 

the calling of the road. The local officials set them- 
selves up as petty sovereigns, and gave the brigands 
support as the party most likely to promote a golden 
age of plunder. Thus the bulk of the population of 
the two dissolved states went to swell the power of 
Sambhaji and his highlanders, and the disastrous 
results of this revolution in Deccan politics were felt 
for more than a century. 

At first indeed Aurangzib's armies seemed to 
carry all before them, and the work of taking posses- 
sion of the whole territory of the vanished kingdoms 
even as far south as Mysore, was swiftly accom- 
plished. Sivaji's brother was hemmed in at Tanjore, 



DEGENERACY OF MOGHULS 40I 

and the Marathas were everywhere driven away to 
their mountain forts. To crown these successes, Sam- 
bhaji was captured by some enterprising Moghuls 
at a moment of careless self-indulgence. Brought 
before Aurangzib, he displayed his talents for vitu- 
peration and blasphemy to such a degree that he 
was put to death with circumstances of exceptional 
barbarity (1689). The brigands were awed for a 
while by the commanding personality and irresist- 
ible force of the Great Moghul. He had accomplished 
a military occupation not merely of the Deccan, but 
of the whole peninsula, save the extreme point 
south of Trichinopoly and the marginal possessions 
of the Portuguese and other foreigners. MiHtary 
occupation, however, was not enough ; he would 
make the southern provinces an integral part of his 
settled empire, as finally and organically a member 
of it as the Panjab or Bengal. With this aim he 
stayed on and on, till hope and will, unquenchable 
in life, were stilled in death. The exasperating 
struggle lasted seventeen years after the execution 
of Sambhaji and the capture of his chief stronghold : 
and at the end success was as far off as ever. 

The explanation of this colossal failure is to be 
found partly in the contrast between the characters 
of the invaders and the defenders. Had the Mo- 
ghuls been the same hardy warriors that Babar led 
from the valleys of the Hindu Kush, or had the 
Rajputs been the loyal protagonists who had so 
often courted destruction in their devoted service 
of earlier emperors, the Marathas would have been 

allowed but a short shrift. But Aurangzib had 
26 



402 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

alienated the Rajputs for ever, and they would not 
risk their lives for him in exterminating a people who 
were after all Hindus, however inferior to them- 
selves in caste and dignity. As for the Moghuls, 
three or four generations of court-life had ruined 
their ancient manliness. Babar would have scorned 
to command such officers as surrounded Auransfzib 
in his gigantic camp at Bairampur. Instead of 
hardy swordsmen, they had become padded dandies. 
They were adorned for a procession, when they 
should have been in rough campaigning outfit. 
Their camp was as splendid and luxurious as if they 
were on guard at the palace of Delhi. The very 
rank and file grumbled if their tents were not fur- 
nished as comfortably as in quarters at Agra, and 
their requirements attracted an immense crowd of 
camp followers, twenty times as numerous as the 
effective strength. So vast a host was like a plague 
of locusts in the country: it devoured everything; 
and though at times it was richly provisioned, at 
others the Marathas cut off communications with the 
base of supplies in the north, and a famine speedily 
ensued. 

The Marathas, on the other hand, cared nothing 
for luxuries: a cake of millet sufficed them for a 
meal, with perhaps an onion for 'point.' They de- 
fended a fort to the last, and then defended another 
fort. They were pursued from place to place, but 
were never daunted, and they filled up the intervals 
of sieges by harassing the Moghul armies, stopping 
convoys of supplies, and laying the country waste in 
the path of the enemy. There was no bringing them 



ENERGY OF AURANGZIB 403 

to a decisive engagement. It was one long series of 
petty victories followed by larger losses. Nothing 
was gained that was worth the labour ; the Marathas 
became increasingly objects of dread to the demor- 
alized Moghul army ; and the country, exasperated 
by the sufferings of a prolonged occupation by an 
alien and licentious soldiery, became more and more 
devoted to the cause of the intrepid bandits, which 
they identified as their own. 

The marvellous thing about this wearisome cam- 
paign' of twenty years is the way in which the brave 
old emperor endured its many hardships and disap- 
pointments. It was he who planned every cam- 
paign, issued all the general orders, selected the 
points for attack and the lines of entrenchment, and 
controlled every movement of his various divisions 
in the Deccan. He conducted many of the sieges 
in person, and when a mine exploded among the 
besiegers at Sattara, in 1699, and general despond- 
ency fell on the army, the octogenarian mounted his 
horse and rode to the scene of disaster * as if in 
search of death.' He piled the bodies of the dead 
into a human ravelin, and was with difficulty pre- 
vented from leading the assault himself. He was 
still the man who had chained his elephant at the 
battle of Samugarh forty years before. Nor was 
his energy confined to the overwhelming anxieties of 
the war. His orders extended to affairs in Afghan- 
istan and disturbances at Agra ; he even thought 
of retaking Kandahar. Not an officer, not a gov- 
ernment clerk, was appointed without his know- 
ledge, and the conduct of the whole official staff 



404 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

was vigilantly scrutinized with the aid of an army 
of spies. 

We are fortunate in possessing a portrait ' of Au- 
rangzib, as he appeared in the midst of his Deccan 
campaigns. On Monday the 2ist of March, 1695, 
Dr. Gemelli Careri was admitted to an audience of 
the emperor in his quarters, called ' Gulalbar,' at the 
camp of Galgala. He saw an old man with a white 
beard, trimmed round, contrasting vividly with his 
olive skin ; * he was of low stature, with a large nose ; 
slender and stooping with age.'' Sitting upon rich 
carpets, and leaning against gold-embroidered cush- 
ions, he received the Neopolitan courteously, asked 
his business in the camp, and being told of Careri's 
travels in Turkey, made inquiries about the war 
then raging between the Sultan and the princes of 
Hungary. The doctor saw him again at the public au- 
dience in a great tent pitched within a court enclosed 
by screens of painted calico. The Moghul appeared 
leaning on a crutched stafT, preceded by several 
nobles. He was simply dressed in a white robe tied 
under the right arm with a silk sash from which his 
dagger hung. On his head was a white turban 
bound with a gold web, ' on which an emeraud of a 
vast bigness appear'd amidst four little ones. His 
shoes were after the Moorish fashion, and his legs 
naked without hose.' He took his seat upon a 
square gilt throne raised two steps above the dais, 
inclosed with silver banisters ; three brocaded pillows 
formed the sides and back, and in front was a little 

' Gemelli Careri, Voyage Round the World, Churchill Coll. , iv. 
222, 223. 



A LONELY SOUL 405 

silver footstool. Over his head a servant held a 
green umbrella to keep off the sun, whilst two others 
whisked the flies away with long white horsetails. 
'When he was seated they gave him his scimitar and 
buckler, which he laid down on his left side within 
the throne. Then he made a sign with his hand for 
those that had business to draw near ; who being 
come up, two secretaries, standing, took their peti- 
tions, which they delivered to the king, telling him 
the contents. I admir'd to see him indorse them 
with his own hand, without spectacles, and by his 
cheerful smiling countenance seemed to be pleased 
with the employment.' 

It is a striking picture of the vigorous old age of 
one who allowed no faculty of his active mind to 
rust, no spring of his spare frame to relax. But be- 
hind that serene mask lay a gloomy, lonely soul. 
It was the tragical fate of the Moghul emperor to 
live and die alone. Solitary state was the heritage 
of his rank, and his natural bent of mind widened 
the breach that severed him from those around him. 
The fate of Shah-Jahan preyed upon his mind. He 
was wont to remind his sons that he was not one to 
be treated as he had used his own father. His 
eldest son had paid the penalty of his brief and 
flighty treason by a life-long captivit}^ ; and Aurang- 
zib had early impressed the lesson upon the second 
brother. ' The art of reigning,' he told Mu'azzam, 
' is so delicate, that a king must be jealous of his 
own shadow. Be wise, or a fate like your brother's 
will befall you also.' Mu'azzam had been docility 
personified, but his father's restless suspicion was 



4o6 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

aroused more than once, and he endured a rigorous 
captivity for seven years (1687-94). On his release, 
another brother, A'zam, became in turn the object 
of jealousy, and it is said that he never received a 
letter from his father without turning pale. One 
son after another was tried and found wanting. 
Towards the close of his life the jealous father was 
drawn closer to his youngest son, Kam-Bakhsh, 
whose mother, Udaipuri Bai, was the only woman 
for whom the emperor entertained anything ap- 
proaching to passionate love/ The young prince 
was suspected of trafficking the imperial honour 
with the Marathas, and placed under temporary 
arrest, but his father forgave or acquitted him, and 
his last letters breathe a tone of tender affection. 

The end of the lonely unloved life was approach- 
ing. Failure stamped every effort of the final years. 
The emperor's long absence had given the rein to 
disorders in the north ; the Rajputs were in open 
rebellion, the Jats had risen about Agra, and the 
Sikhs began to make their name notorious in Multan. 
The Deccan was a desert, where the path of the 
Marathas was traced by pillaged towns, ravaged 
fields, and smoking villages. The Moghul army was 
enfeebled and demoralized; 'those infernal foot- 

' Aurangzib's wives played but a small part in his life. Accord- 
ing to Manucci the chief wife was a Rajput princess, and became the 
mother of Mohammad and Mu'azzam, besides a daughter. A Per- 
sian lady was the mother of A'zam and Akbar and two daughters. 
The nationality of the third, by whom the emperor had one daugh- 
ter, is not recorded. Udaipuri, the mother of Kam-Bakhsh, was a 
Christian from Georgia, and had been purchased by Dara, on whose 
execution she passed to the harim of Aurangzib. 



FAILURE 407 

soldiers ' were croaking like rooks in an invaded 
rookery, clamouring for their arrears of pay. The 
finances were in hopeless confusion, and Aurangzib 
refused to be pestered about them. The Marathas 
became so bold that they plundered on the skirts of 
the Grand Army and openly scoffed at the emperor, 
and no man dared leave the Moghul lines without a 
strong escort. There was even a talk of making 
terms with the insolent bandits. 

At last the emperor led the dejected remnant of 
his once powerful army, in confusion and alarm, 
pursued by skirmishing bodies of exultant Marathas, 
back to Ahmadnagar, whence, more than twenty 
years before, he had set out full of sanguine hope 
and at the head of a splendid and invincible host. 
His long privations had at length told upon his 
health, and when he entered the city he said that 
his journeys were over. Even when convinced that 
the end was near, his invincible suspicions still 
mastered his natural affections. He kept all his 
sons away, lest they should do even as he had done 
to his own father. Alone he had lived, and alone 
he made ready to die. He had all the puritan's 
sense of sin and unworthiness, and his morbid creed 
inspired a terrible dread of death. He poured out 
his troubled heart to his sons in letters which show 
the love which all his suspicion could not uproot. 

* Peace be with you and yours,' he wrote to Prince 
A'zam, ' I am grown very old and weak, and my 
limbs are feeble. Many were around me when I was 
born, but now I am going alone. I know not why I 
am or wherefore I came into the world. I bewail 



408 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

the moments which I have spent forgetful of God's 
worship. I have not done well by the country or 
its people. My years have gone by profitless. God 
has been in my heart, yet my darkened eyes have 
not recognized his light. Life is transient, and the 
lost moment never comes back. There is no hope 
for me in the future. The fever is gone: but only 
skin and dried flesh are mine. . . . The army is 
confounded and without heart -or help, even as I am : 
apart from God, with no rest for the heart. They 
know not whether they have a king or not. Nothing 
brought I into this world, but I carry away with 
me the burthen of my sins. I know not what punish- 
ment be in store for me to suffer. Though my trust 
is in the mercy and goodness of God, I deplore my 
sins. When I have lost hope in myself, how can I 
hope in others? Come what will, I have launched 
my bark upon the waters. . . . Farewell ! Fare- 
well ! Farewell ! ' 

To his favourite Kam-Bakhsh he wrote : — ' Soul of 
my soul. . . . Now I am going alone. I grieve 
for your helplessness. But what is the use ? Every 
torment I have inflicted, every sin I have committed, 
every wrong I have done, I carry the consequence 
with me. Strange that I came with nothing into 
the world, and now go away with this stupendous 
caravan of sin ! . . . Wherever I look I see only 
God. ... I have greatly sinned, and I know 
not what torment awaits me. . . . Let not 
Muslims be slain and reproach fall upon my useless 
head. I commit you and your sons to God's care, 
and bid you farewell. I am sorely troubled. Your 



A LIFE'S TRAGEDY 409 

sick mother, Udaipuri, would fain die with me. . . . 
Peace ! ' 

On Friday, the 4th of March, 1707, in the fiftieth 
year of his reign, and the eighty-ninth of his Hfe, after 
performing the morning prayers and repeating the 
creed, the eiliperor Aurangzib gave up the ghost. In 
accordance with his command, * Carry this creature 
of dust to the nearest burial-place, and lay him in the 
earth with no useless coffin,* he was buried in all 
simplicity near Daulatabad beside the tombs of 
Muslim saints. 

' Every plan that he formed came to little good ; 
every enterprise failed : ' such is the comment of the 
Mohammedan historian on the career of the sovereign 
whom he justly extols for his * devotion, austerity, 
and justice,' and his ' incomparable courage, long- 
suffering, and judgment/ Aurangzib's life had 
been a vast failure, indeed, but he had failed 
grandly. His glory is that he could not force his 
soul, that he dared not desert the colours of his 
faith. The great Puritan of India was of such stuff 
as wins the martyr's crown. 




CHAPTER XVI 

THE FALL OF THE MOGHUL EMPIRE 

THE HINDU REVIVAL 

I 707- I 765 

AURANGZIB was the last of the Great Moghuls, 
in all save the name. He had been by far the 
most powerful of the line; he had ruled wider terri- 
tories and commanded vaster armies than Akbar; 
and he had governed his teeming populations with 
an absolute despotism in which no other man had a 
voice. What Akbar has achieved by broad-minded 
statesmanship, and Shah-Jahan by imposing majesty 
and panoplied array, Aurangzib had accomplished 
by the exercise of an iron will and indomitable per- 
sonal labour. Through the greater part of his long 
reign no sovereign was ever more abjectly feared and 
obeyed ; none certainly showed a more marvellous 
grasp of administration. Then at the last the effects 
of too close repression, of over-government and cen- 
tralization, were discovered. The tedious war in the 
Deccan exhausted his armies and destroyed his 
prestige, and no sooner was the dominating mind 

410 



AT AURANGZIB'S DEATH 4II 

stilled in death than all the forces that he had sternly 
controlled, all the warring elements that struggled 
for emancipation from the grinding yoke, broke out 
in irrepressible tumult. Even before the end of his 
reign Hindustan was in confusion, and the signs of 
coming dissolution had appeared. As some imperial 
corpse, preserved for ages in its dread seclusion, 
crowned and armed and still majestic, yet falls to 
dust at the mere breath of heaven, so fell the empire 
of the Moghul when the great name that guarded it 
was no more. It was as though some splendid 
palace, reared with infinite skill with all the costliest 
stones and precious metals of the earth, had attained 
its perfect beauty only to collapse in undistinguish- 
able ruin when the insidious roots of the creeper^ 
sapped the foundations. 

Even had Aurangzib left a successor of his own 
mental and moral stature, it may be doubted whether 
the process of disintegration could have been stayed. 
The disease was too far advanced for even the most 
heroic surgery. To increase the confusion the Great 
Moghul had made no nomination to the throne he 
was vacating, and as usual all the sons claimed the 
sceptre. The contest was brief : Prince A'zam was 
slain in battle near Agra, Kam-bakhsh died of his 
wounds after a defeat near Haidarabad, and the first- 
born Mu'azzam ascended the throne with the title of 
Bahadur Shah. He found himself face to face with 
such difficulties as had not been known since the 

' The Jictis religiosa. The simile is Mr. H. G. Keene's, whose 
Fall of the Moght{l E7?ipire {i^^l), is one of the best and most in- 
teresting books on the history of India in the eighteenth century. 



412 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

days of Humayun. It was not merely the Marathas 
that had to be dealt with : the Rajput rajas were in 
revolt ; the Sikhs were rising in the Panjab, and the 
Jats near Agra; and the EngHsh had ventured on 
bold reprisals, which were to lead to far-reaching 
consequences in another half-century. 

Nor was it only among non-Muslim peoples that 
the spirit of insurrection was alive. These no doubt 
had been excited by the religious intolerance of the 
late emperor; but the Muslims themselves were 
scarcely in better order. The fatal system of re- 
warding services or conciliating jealousies by large 
grants of territory had produced a kind of baronage 
fully as dangerous and subversive of central author- 
ity as any corresponding class in feudal Europe. 
The provincial mansabdars had become petty kings, 
and were far more interested in coercing their 
neighbours than in supporting their emperor against 
his many foes. Nor could Bahadur rely upon his 
troops as Babar and Akbar had trusted them. The 
toleration of Akbar's policy, the luxurious splendour 
of Shah-Jahan's court, had bred both indifference 
and effeminacy in what had once been an army of 
hardy mountaineers. India had proved the Capua, 
of Babar's veterans, and the enervating climate had 
relaxed their thews and softened their training 
whilst drink had become the curse not only of the 
imperial house, many of v/hom died of it, but also 
of the nobles and the whole court. ' The heroic 
soldiers of the early empire and their not less heroic 
wives had given place to a vicious and delicate breed 
of grandees. The ancestors of Aurangzib, who 



DECCAN AFFAIRS SETTLED 413 

swooped down on India from the north, were ruddy- 
men in boots : the courtiers among whom Aurangzib 
grew up were pale persons in petticoats. Babar, the 
founder of the empire, had swum every river which 
he met with during thirty years campaigning ; the 
luxurious nobles around the youthful Aurangzib 
wore skirts made of innumerable folds of the finest 
white muslin, and went to war in palankins.' ^ 
Nothing but the old emperor's steel hand and high 
example could have made these men join in his 
campaigns ; but even so, twenty years of doubtful 
warfare had exhausted what courage there was, 
and his successor inherited a thoroughly dispirited 
army. 

With such materials as he had, and against such 
odds, Bahadur must be credited with both courage 
and prudence. He showed no rancour against the 
chiefs who had sided with his brothers in the brief 
war of succession, but gladly welcomed them to his 
councils. His great object was to settle affairs in the 
Deccan so as to be free to deal with the many 
troubles in Hindustan. Fortunately there was a 
split among the Marathas, and two claimants to the 
chief command, one of whom, the rightful heir, -vyas 
a captive in the Moghul camp. This Sahu was re- 
leased by Bahadur, who recognized his title on con- 
ditions of peace. Leaving the Marathas to arrange 
their own differences, the emperor went north and 
made terms with the insurgent Rajputs, practically 
restoring them to the position they had held in Ak- 
bar's reign. The terms might have been less favour- 

*Sir W. W. Hunter, AHneteenth Century^ May, 1S87. 



414 MEDIMVAL INDIA 

able if Bahadur's anxieties had not been concentrated 
on a new danger. 

The Sikhs, who had begun about two centuries 
before as a purely religious sect of theists, had been 
driven by Muslim persecution to form themselves 
into a military organization, with distinctive uniform, 
customs, and ceremonies ; and by the close of the 
seventeenth century they had developed into a fierce 
and fanatical soldiery, burning to avenge the atro- 
cities suffered by their leader, Guru Govind, at the 
hands of the Muslims. The general confusion at 
the time of Aurangzib's death gave them their op- 
portunity. From their retreats on the upper Sutlej, 
they raided the eastern Panjab, butchering their 
enemies, men, women, and children, and destroying 
the mosques. A second raid, as far as Lahore and 
even Delhi, brought Bahadur into the field. He 
drove them to the hills, but without materially shak- 
ing their power ; and then unfortunately he died 
(1712). Short as his reign had been, it must be re- 
membered that he was the son of a very old man, 
and was himself nearly seventy. Had he been in 
the prime of life there might possibly have been a 
different story to tell. 

After the usual struggle for the throne and ensu- 
ing massacre of kindred, his son Jahandar succeeded 
—utterly incapable and incurably vicious ; in less 
than a year he was murdered, and his nephew, Far- 
rukhsiyar, a despicable poltroon, suffered the like 
fate six years later (1719), when, after a couple of 
youths had been tried for a few months, Mohammad 
Shah received the title of emperor which he retained 



PARTITION OF THE EMPIRE 415 

for twenty-eight years. It was but a title, however, 
for the power and the glory had departed from the 
house of Babar, and Mohammad was only able to 
preserve some semblance of authority by intrigue 
and combination with the various governors and ad- 
venturers who now partitioned the distracted empire. 
By such means he contrived to rid himself of the 
dictatorship of the Barha Sayyids, two brothers who 
for some years had usurped the supreme control of 
affairs in the time of their wretched tool Farrukhsiyar. 
But there were other forces which he could not 
master. 

Among these the Sikhs were no longer to be 
reckoned, for they had been put down in the time 
of the Sayyids with remorseless brutality, and for 
many years this valiant people was scarcely heard 
of. The Marathas, on the other hand, were increas- 
ing in power every year. Their only rival in the 
Deccan was Chin Kulich Khan, better known as 
Asaf Jah, the founder of the dynasty of the Nizams 
of Haidarabad which subsists to this day ; and Asaf 
Jah found it expedient to make terms with the 
enemy and submit to their system of levying the 
chauthy a kind of Danegeld by means of which 
the Marathas systematically extended their influence 
with less trouble than if they had immediately in- 
sisted on territorial cessions. By the skilful policy 
of Balaji, and his even abler son Baji Rao, the earliest 
of the Peshwas, — the real leaders, who stood towards 
the hereditary Maratha raja much as the Shogan did 
to the Mikado before the Japanese revolution, — 
this system of blackmail was enlarged till it was 



41 6 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

accepted not only in the Deccan but in Gujarat 
(173 1), Malwa, and even as far north as Bandelkhand. 
By this time some famous names — Pilaji Gaikwar, 
Holkar, and Sindhia — -begin to appear among the 
officers of the peshwa, and save for old Asaf Jah, 
who was now the leading man in India, there was no 
corresponding ability on the Moghul side. Even 
this veteran, when the Marathas, by way of demon- 
stration, advanced up to the very gates of Delhi, 
could muster only 34,000 men to oppose them. The 
result was the cession of the whole of the territories 
between the Narbada and the Chambal to the suc- 
cessful peshwa (1738). 

Whilst the wolves of the Deccan were steadily 
working up from the south, a new catastrophe from 
the north befell the vestiges of the Moghul empire. 
In the midst of the pressing difficulties that sur- 
rounded them neither the emperors nor their minis- 
ters had been able to pay much attention to what 
was going on in Afghanistan. Kabul and Ghazni 
still belonged to the empire of Delhi, as they had 
done since the time of Babar, but Kandahar, which 
had been in the possession of the Shahs of Persia 
since 1648, had been seized by the Ghilzai Afghans, 
who had carried their successes to the point of seat- 
ing their chief upon the Persian throne ( 1 722). Their 
brief triumph was reversed in 1729 by the famous 
soldier Nadir Shah, who not only gained possession 
of Persia, but recovered Kandahar (1738) and im- 
mediately completed his conquest by seizing Kabul 
and Ghazni. The Moghuls — it is an instructive 
precedent — relied on the mountain tribes, whom 



PERSIA INVADES INDIA 417 

they had formerly subsidized, to prevent the invaders 
from penetrating the passes into India ; but the sub- 
sidy had lapsed during the recent troubles, and the 
Afghans offered no obstacles to the Persians. In 
November, 1738, Nadir crossed the Indus, and after 
a partial engagement with the Moghul forces, who 
were half disposed to side with the invaders, the 
conqueror received the surrender of the emperor in 
person in February, 1739. The Persians entered 
Delhi with Mohammad Shah as their captive guest, 
and in revenge for a murderous onslaught of the 
populace, the capital was given over to fire, carnage, 
and rapine. The imperial treasures, including the 
famous jewelled Peacock Throne, valued by Taver- 
nier at i^6,ooo,ooo, were seized and transported to 
Persia, the inhabitants were squeezed to the last 
mohr, and torture was employed to extort payment. 
* Sleep and rest forsook the city. In every chamber 
and house was heard the cry of affliction. It was be- 
fore a general massacre, but now the murder of in- 
dividuals.' The awful visitation of Timur was 
repeated and even outdone. At last, after two 
months of colossal pillage, Nadir returned to his own 
country, carrying with him spoils to the value of 
eight or nine millions in money alone, besides an 
immense treasure of gold and silver plate, jewels, 
rich stuffs, and a crowd of skilled artisans, with herds 
of elephants, horses, and camels.' 

This invasion of India from the north, unexpected 
as it was after a cessation of all such inroads during 

' See Elphinstone (1866 ed.), 716-720, and the Siyar-el-Muta- 

khirin. 

27 



41 8 MEDIAEVAL INDIA 

two centuries of Moghul power, was too successful 
not to invite repetition, and upon the assassination 
of Nadir in 1747, Ahmad Shah, the chief of the 
Abdali tribe of Afghans, after founding a powerful 
kingdom at Kandahar, soon found his way into the 
Panjab. This first attempt was strenuously resisted 
(1748) ; the battle of Sirhind saw the Afghans driven 
back by Indian troops as they were never driven 
again ; but Ahmad Shah did not abandon his de- 
sign. The empire of Delhi was at its weakest ; the 
old nizam was dead, and the factions at court were 
internecine. The new emperor, also named Ahmad, 
who succeeded Mohammad in 1748, was so sorely 
beset by the Rohillas that he, or rather his vezir 
Safdar Jang, nawab or viceroy of Oudh, — the first 
to combine the offices of nawab-vezir, — was reduced 
to the necessity of calling in the Marathas to his aid. 
Holkar and Sindhia enabled the vezir to bring the 
Rohillas to submission, but the Deccan wolves in- 
demnified themselves liberally for their help, by 
levying their chauth throughout the conquered dis- 
tricts. Even Bengal had been forced to submit to 
their blackmail, and the Marathas were now in a 
position to dictate terms at Delhi. Indeed, the em- 
pire of Aurangzib had lost the power of resistance. 
Not a province of all the wide dominion that still nomi- 
nally owned the Moghul's sway was really under his 
control, except the upper Doab and a few districts 
about the Sutlej. The Panjab was in the hands of 
the Afghans, Safdar Jang was practically sovereign 
at Oudh and Allahabad, Aliverdi Khan held Bengal. 
Afghans and Rohillas did as they pleased in the 



MARATHAS CONQUER THE PAN JAB 419 

middle Doab and Rohilkhand, Gujarat and Malwa 
were Maratha provinces, and the Deccan, even the 
part held by the second nizam was wholly beyond 
the mastery of Delhi. 

Meanwhile Ahmad Shah still hovered over the 
Panjab, which was tamely ceded to him in the hope 
of checking worse demands ; but a treacherous at- 
tack on his governor at Lahore roused him to a 
fresh invasion, and in 1756 Delhi experienced all the 
horrors of a sack over again. On his retiring in 
the following year, the old intrigues and jealousies 
revived ; the Marathas were again called in, and this 
time the peshwa's brother actually occupied the 
capital, where a new puppet-emperor Alamgir II, 
who had succeeded the debauched Ahmad in 1754, 
was helpless between the rival interests of the vezir 
Ghazi-ad-din and the Afghan chief of Rohillas, 
Najib-ad-daula. The Marathas now made them- 
selves masters of the Panjab and felt that they were 
within sight of the conquest of the whole of Hindu- 
stan. They were in the zenith of their power. 
Their domestic differences had been accommodated, 
and a general combination of all their forces was ar- 
ranged. They were no longer the ill-disciplined 
band of marauders that had baffled Aurangzib by 
their guerrilla tactics : besides such predatory hordes, 
they had well-ordered cavalry and infantry and a 
better artillery train than the Moghuls themselves. 
Full of their strength and ambition they raised the 
cry of Hindustan for the Hindus. 

It had become a religious war, centred round the 
phantom of the Moghul empire. On the one hand 



420 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

was the Mohammedan Afghan, Ahmad Shah, eager 
to recover the Panjab and to take vengeance on the 
new power that had robbed him. On the other was 
the Moghul vezir of Oudh, Shuja'-ad-daula, son of 
Safdar Jang, supported by the forces of the eastern 
provinces. Between lay the prostrate capital, over- 
awed by the host of the Hindu Marathas. There 
was not even a Moghul emperor to hold the balance, 
for the harmless figure-head, Alamgir, had been 
murdered by the vezir in 1759, and the heir, Shah- 
Alam, had fled to the protection of the British in 
Bengal in dread of sharing the same fate. Among 
all the bold adventurers who played the king in 
India at this time, none was more remarkable than 
Ghazi-ad-din, the youthful grandnephew of Asaf 
Jah, who dominated the political situation from 1752 
to 1759 by sheer audacity and brilliant recklessness. 
The murder of the emperor, however, was a stroke 
that overreached itself, and when the Afghan Shah 
moved down upon the capital, the unscrupulous 
youn^ assassin fled for his life. Ahmad Shah found 
the throne empty, and proceeded to take steps for 
the maintenance of the Mohammedan power in India 
as master of the situation. 

The decisive moment came on January 6, 1761. 
The Marathas were intrenched at Panipat with a 
force of 70,000 cavalry and 15,000 infantry, nine 
thousand of whom were thoroughly disciplined un- 
der a Mohammedan who had served in the French 
army in India under Bussy. The comrnander-in- 
chief was the peshwa's cousin Sadasheo Bhao, and 
Holkar and Sindhia were with him. The Afghans 



BATTLE OF PANIPAT 42 1 

and Moghuls numbered about 53,000 horse, Afghan, 
Persian, and Indian, and less than 40,000 infantry, 
partly Rohillas under Najib ; but their field pieces 
were very inferior to the Marathas' guns. Too weak 
to attack, the Muslim army intrenched itself over 
against the Hindus, and for two months the oppos- 
ing forces that were contending for the crown of 
India watched each other narrowly. Famine soon 
began to make itself felt, but Ahmad Shah refused 
to force an action. He knew that the Deccan 
wolves were suffering even more than his Pathans. 
They were even opening negotiations for peace with 
the nawab-vezir, but the Afghan king, strongly 
urged by Najib, refused all compromise. 

At last the Bhao declared that ' the cup is now 
full to the brim and cannot hold another drop'; the 
time for negotiation was past, and the starved Hin- 
dus, smeared with turmeric, threw themselves upon 
the Afghan army. For a time it looked as if Hindu- 
ism had triumphed. The Rohillas suffered tremen- 
dously ; the vezir could hardly hold his ground ; the 
Muslims were skulking or flying. Ahmad Shah, 
who was watching the battle from his red tent, saw 
that the time had come to order up his reserves. He 
rallied the fugitives, cut down all who would not re- 
turn to the fight, and sent his mailed reserve, 10,000 
strong, to support the vezir and charge upon the 
enemy in close order. The effect of this heavy 
charge at the close of an exhausting battle was su- 
preme. The Marathas gave way, the Bhao was 
killed, Holkar and Sindhia left the field, an awful 
butchery followed. Once more the plain of Panipat 



422 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

had witnessed a decisive battle in the history of 
India. 

The Marathas never recovered from the blow, 
though they had still a prominent part to play in 
the annals of Hindustan. For the present the scene 
of action was transferred from Delhi to Bengal and 
Bihar, where the new emperor, Shah-Alam, was 
involved in the complicated difficulties that had 
sprung up between the Nawab-vezir and the British. 
There, however, the history of Mohammedan India 
closes, and the history of British India begins. The 
victory of Panipat swept away the Marathas only to 
make a clear path for the English. Less than four 
years afterwards the battle of Buxar (Baksar) on Oc- 
tober 23, 1764, disposed of the power of the Nawab, 
and the next day Shah-Alam came into the British 
camp. The treaty then signed made the Nawab-vezir 
a vassal of Calcutta, and the Moghul emperor a 
pensioner of the East India Company. Such 
was the political tragedy of the famous House of 
Timur. 

The dynasty of Babar ended in nothingness, like 
all its many predecessors. The Mohammedan as- 
cendancy in Hindustan, rising from Mahmud's raids, 
spreading under the vigorous rule of a few of the 
Slave Kings and their great successor Ala-ad-din, 
and attaining its widest scope and severest aspect 
under Aurangzib, only to fall rapidly to its decline 
in the weak hands of his descendants, left few traces 
of its long domination. A new vernacular, com- 
pounded of the languages of the Shah Namaand the 
Ramayana ; a multitude of exquisite monuments of 



LEGACIES OF ISLAM TO INDIA 423 

the Muslim faith, inspired by analogies in far western 
lands of Islam, but modified and, if one may say so, 
sensualized by the grosser architecture of India; a 
few provinces still owning Mohammedan rulers; a 
large Muslim minority content to dwell among ' in- 
fidels * and to obey the behests of the Christians from 
the distant islands of the West — • such are the chief 
legacies of Islam to India. Nine centuries of asso- 
ciation have produced no sensible fusion between the 
Muslim and the Hindu, any more than two centuries 
of intercourse have blended either with the domin- 
ant English. There are those who believe that the 
contact of Western energy with Eastern thought, 
the infusion of European literature in the subtle 
Indian mind, and the reaction of the ancient philo- 
sophies of the Brahman schools upon the imagination 
of the West, may end in generating a new force in 
the world, — another great religion, who knows? — 
an Indian nation combining the profound specula- 
tions of the East with the progressive activities of 
Europe. Prophecy is no part of the historian's duty ; 
but if any forecast may be deduced from the long 
period of alien rule surveyed in the preceding pages, 
it is not favourable to any hopes of such consumma- 
tion. The conquerors of India have come in hordes 
again and again, but they have scarcely touched the 
soul of the people. The Indian is still, in general, 
what he always was, in spite of them all ; and how- 
ever forcible the new and unprecedented influences 
now at work upon an instructed minority, one can 
with difficulty imagine any serious change in the 
rooted character and time-honoured instincts of the 



424 MEDIEVAL INDIA 

vast mass of the people : nor is it at all certain that 
such change would be for the better. 

The East bowed low before the blast 

In patient^ deep disdain; 
She let the legions thunder past, 

And plunged in thought again. 




MOHAMMEDAN DYNASTIES 

GHAZNAWIDS 

A.H. A.D. 

366 Sabuktagin 976 

387 Isma II 997 

388 M AHMUD 998 

421 Mohammad 1030 

421 Mas'ud 1 1030 

432 Maudud 1040 

440 Mas'iid II 1048 

440 'All 1048 

440 ' Abd-ar-RashTd 1049 

444 Tughril (usurper) 1052 

444 Farrukhzad 1052 

45 1 Ibrahim 1059 

492 " Mas'ud III 1099 

508 Sherzad 1 1 14 

509 Arslan Shah 1115 

512 Bahram Shah 1118 

547 Khusru Shah 1152 

555-582 Khusru Malik 1160-1186 



HOUSE OF GHOR 

A.H. A.D. 
Kutb-ad-din — — 

543 Saif-ad-din Surl 1 148 

544 *Ala-.ad-dIn Husain yahdn-soz ii49 

556 Saif-ad-dln Mohammad 1161 

425 



426 MOHAMMEDAN DYNASTIES 

A.H. A.D. 

558 Ghiyas-ad-din ibn Sam 1163 

569 Mu izz-ad-din Mohammad Ghori at Ghazni 11 74 

570 ff Conquers Hindustan ii75ff 

599-602 Succeeds Ghiyas-ad-din at Ghor 1 201-1206 



TREE OF THE SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI 
I. Aybek 





2. 


L 

Aram 


1 
daughter 


= 3. 


Altamish 
1 


4. Firoz 
7. Masud 


5. 


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Bahram 


8. 


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Firoz 

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1 
Bughra 
(W. Bengal) 




1 

Bahadur 

(E. Bengal) 


Nasir-ad-din 
(Lakhnauti) 


1 
Hatim 
(Bihar) 



KINGS OF DELHI 

I. — SLAVE KINGS 

A.H. A.D. 

602 Aybek, Kutb-ad-din 1206 

607 Aram 1210 

607 Altamish, Shams-ad-din. ........................ 1210 



MOHAMMEDAN DYNASTIES 427 

A.H. A.D. 

633 Firoz I., Rukn-ad-din 1236 

634 Raz!yat-ad-din 1236 

637 Bahrain, Mu'izz-ad-dln 1240 

639 Mas ud, 'Ala-ad-dln 1242 

644 Mahmud, Nasir-ad-din 1 246 

664 Balban, Ghiyas-ad-dln 1266 

686 Kai-Kubad, Mu'izz-ad-din 1287 

II. — KHALJIS 

689 Firoz II., Jalal-ad-din 1290 

695 Ibrahim, Rukn-ad-dIn 1296 

695 Mohammad, 'Ala-ad-din 1296 

715 'Omar, Shihab-ad-din 1316 

716 Mubarak, Kutb-ad-dln 1316 

720 Khusrii, Nasir-ad-din 1321 

III. — HOUSE OF TAGHLAK 

720 Taghlak 1321 

725 MohammadTaghlak 1325 

752 Firoz III 1351 

790 Taghlak II 1388 

791 Abu-Bakr 1388 

792 Mohammad 139° 

796 Sikandar 1394 

796 i Mahmud [1394 

( Nasrat ' 

801-2 Invasion of TiMUR. - 1398-9 

802 Mahmud restored 1399 

815 [Daulat Khan Lodi] 1412 

IV. — SAYYIDS 

817 Khizr 1414 

824 Mubarak 1421 

837 Mohammad ^433 

847 ' Alam 1443 



428 MOHAMMEDAN DYNASTIES 

V. — LODIS 

A.H. A.D. 

855 Bahlol 1451 

894 SiKANDAR 1488 

923 Ibrahim 1518 

932 Invasion of Bdbar 1526 

vi. — afghans 

946 Sher Shah 1539 

952 Islam Shah 1545 

960 Mohammad 'Adie 1552 

961 Ibrahim Sur 1553 

962 Sikandar I554 

962 Moghul Conquest 1555 

VII. — MOGHUL emperors' 

932 Babar 1526 

937 Humayun 1530 

946 Deposed by Sher Shah 1539 

962 Humayun restored 1555 

963 Akbar 1556 

1014 Jahangir 1605 

1037 Shah-Jahan 1628 

1069 A urangzTb 'Alamgir 1659 

1119 Bahadur ■ 1707 

1124 Jahandar 1712 

1124 Farrukhsiyar 1713 

1131 Mohammad 1719 

I161 Invasion of Ahmad Shah Durrani 1748 

1161 Ahmad 1748 

1167 Alamgir II 1754 

1173 Shah-'Alam 1759 

1221 Mohammad Akbar II 1806 

1253 Bahadur. 1837 

1275 Queen Victoria 1857 

^ For several pretenders and ephemeral or local sovereigns of this line see 
Lanh-Poole, The Mohammedan Dynasties^ 328. 



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429 



430 MOHAMMEDAN DYNASTIES 

GOVERNORS AND KINGS OF BENGAL 

A.H. A.D. 

599 * Bakhtiyar Khalji 1202 

602 'Izz-ad-din Mohammad Shiran 1205 

605 *Ala-ad-dTn Mardan 1208 

608 Ghiyas-ad-din 'Iwaz 1211 

624 Nasir-ad-din Mahmud 1226 

627 'Ala-ad-din Jam 1229 

627 Saif-ad-din Aybek 1229 

631 'Izz-ad-din Tughril Tughan 1233 

642 Kamar-ad-din Tamar 1244 

644 Ikhtiyar-ad-dln Yuzbek 1246 

656 Jalal-ad-din Mas'ud 1258 

657 'Izz-ad-din Balban 1258 

659 ? Mohammad Arslan Tatar Khan 1260 ? 

Sher Khan ... 

Amin Khan 

677 Mughls-ad-dln Tughril 1278 

681 Nasir-ad-din Bughra, son of Balban of Delhi 1282 

691 Rukn-ad-din Kai-Kawus, son of Bughra 1291 

702 Shams-ad-dln Fir5z, son of Bughra 1302 

718 Shihab-ad-din Bughra, son of Bughra (W. Bengal). . . . 1318 
710 Ghiyas-ad-din Bahadur, son of Firoz (E. Bengal) 1310 

719 Ghiyas-ad-din Bahadur, son of Firoz (all Bengal) 1319 

723-6 Nasir-ad-din, son of Firoz (Lakhnauti) 1323-5 

725-31 Bahadur restored, with Bahram (E. Bengal) 1324-30 

731-9 Bahram 1330-8 

726-40 Kadr Khan (Lakhnauti) 1325-39 

724-40 'Izz-ad-din (Satgaon) 1323-39 

739-50 Fakhr-ad-din Mubarak (E. Bengal) 1338-49 

750-3 Ikhtiyar-ad-din Ghazi (E. Bengal) 1349-52 

740-6 *Ala-ad-din 'Ali (W. Bengal) 1339-45 

746 Shams-ad-din Ilyas 1345 

759 Sikandar 1 1358 

792 Ghiyas-ad-din A'zam 1389 

799 Saif-ad-din Hamza. . , 1396 

809 Shams-ad-din 1406 

812 Shihab-ad-din Bayazid (with Raja Kans) 1409 

817 Jalal-ad-din Mohammad 1414 

835 Shams-ad-din Ah mad ,,.,,,.. 1431 



MOHAMMEDAN DYNASTIES 43 1 

A.H. A.D. 

846 Nasir-ad-din Mahmud 1442 

864 Rukn-ad-din Barbak 1459 

879 Shams-ad-dln Yusuf 1474 

886 Sikandarll 1481 

886 Jalal-ad-din Fath 1481 

892 Shahzada Barbak Habshi i486 

892 Saif-ad-dln Firdz i486 

895 Nasir-ad-dIn Mahmud 1489 

896 Shams-ad-din Muzaffar 1490 

899 *Ala-ad-din Husain 1493 

925 Nasir-ad-din Nasrat 15 18 

939 'Ala-ad-din Firoz 1 532 

939 Ghiyai-ad-din Mahmud 1532 

944 Conquest by Humdyun 1537 

946 Sher Shah (Sultan of Delhi) 1539 

952 Islam Shah (Sultan of Delhi) 1545 

960 Shams-ad-din Mohammad Sur 1552 

962 Bahadur 1554 

968 Ghiyas-ad-din Jalal 1560 

971 Sulaiman Kararani 1563 

980 Bayazid 1572 

980 Dawud 1572 

984 Annexed by Akbar 157^ 



KINGS OF THE EAST (JAUNPUR) 

A.H. A.D. 

796 Khwaja-i-Jahan 1394 

802 Mubarak 1399 

803 Ibrahim 1401 

844 Mahmud I440 

861 Mohammad 1457 

863 Husain 1458 

881 Annexed by Delhi 1477 



432 MOHAMMEDAN DYNASTIES 

KINGS OF MALWA 

I.— GHORIS 
A.H. A.D. 

804 Dilawar Khan Ghori 1401 

808 Hushang 1406 

838 Mohammad 1434 

II. — KHALjTs 

839 Mahmud I. Khaljl 1435 

880 Ghiyas 1475 

906 Nasir 1500 

916 Mahmud II 1510 

937 Annexed by Gujarat I53l 



KINGS OF GUJARAT 

A.H. A.D. 

799 Zafar Khan, Muzafifar I 1397 

814 Ahmad 1 1411 

816 Mohammad Karim 1443 

855 Kutb-ad-dln. 1451 

863 Dawud 1458 

863 Mahmud I... 1458 

917 Muzafifar II 1511 

932 Sikandar 1525 

932 Mahmud II. (Nasir) 1525 

932 Bahadur 1526 

943 Miran Mohammad (of Khandesh) 1537 

944 Mahmud III 1537 

961 Ahmad II 1553 

969 Muzaffar III 1561 

980 Annexed by Akbar 1572 



BAHMANI KINGS OF THE DECCAN 

A.H. A.D. 

748 Hasan Gangu Zafar Khan 1347 

759 Mohammad 1 1358 



MOHAMMEDAN DYNASTIES 



433 



A.H. A.D. 

776 Mujahid 1375 

780 Dawud 1378 

780 Mahmud 1 1378 

799 Ghiyas-ad-din 1397 

799 Sliams-ad-din 1397 

800 Firoz 1397 

825 Ahmad 1 1422 

838 Ahmad II 1435 

862 Humayiln 1458 

865 Nizam 1461 

867 Mohammad II 1463 

887 Mahmud II , 1482 

924 Ahmad III 1 5 18 

927 *Ala-ad-din 1520 

929 Wali-Allah 1522 

932-3 Kallm-Allah , 1525-6 




INDEX 



Abatis, 20I, 202 

Abbas Khan, 234 

Abbasid caliphs, 15, 16, 18, 72 

Abd-al-Hakk, 144 

Abd-an-Nabi, 275, 282 

Abd-ar-Razzak, 398, 399 

Abu-Bekr, 154 

Abu-1-Fazl, 252, 269, 272-286 

Abu-1-Hasan, 396-400 

Abyssinians in India, 75, 76, 147, 

164 
Adham Khan, 244, 245 
Adil Shah (Adali), 236 
Adil Shahs, 184, 185, 344, 348, 

396 
Adoni, iSi 
Afghanistan, 198 [Ghazni, Kabul, 

Kandahar] 
Afghans, 154, 171, 190-192, 197 

note, 210-213, 219-223, 232- 

237, 239-242 [Khalji, Lodi, 

Lohani] 
Afif, 143, 146 
Agra, 203, 212, 213, 215, 217, 

223, 226, 297, 301, 311, 333- 

339. 370, 381; red fort, 270 
Ahmad I, Bahmanid, 180 
Ahmad I of Gujarat, 175 
Ahmad Khan of Mewat, 163 
Ahmad Shah, Abdali, 418-421 
Ahmad Shah, Moghul, 418, 

419 



Ahmadabad, 175, 176, 225, 226, 
250, 332 

Ahmadnagar, 176, 286, 344, 345 

Ahsanabad (Kulbarga) 179 

Ain-i-Akbari, 266, 284 

Ajmir, 53, 174, 239, 356, 385; 
fort, 52; mosque, 68, 69 

Akat Khan, 100 

Akbar, 179, 237; birth, 232; 
gradual conquests, 239; vic- 
tory of Panipat, 240, 241; frees 
himself from Bairam's tutel- 
age, 242, 244; court influences, 
245 ; physical characteristics, 
246, 247; courage, 248-250; 
encouragement of Hindus,25i; 
Hindu and other wives, 251, 
252; abolition of poll-tax and 
pilgrim taxes, 252; social laws, 
252, 253; siege of Chitor, 254 
-257; loyalty of Rajputs, 258; 
Todar Mai's land reforms, 
260-268; Sufi influences, Abu-1- 
Fazl, 269; Fathpur-Sikri, 270- 
274; art, 273, 274; the Divine 
Faith, 275-278; imperial in- 
fallibility, 279; sun-worship, 
280-282; the millennium, 283; 
the Ain-i-Akbari, 284; Dec- 
can conquests, 285-286; loss 
of friends, 285-2S6; death, 
287; tomb, 287; Anaga, Ma- 
ham, 242 

Akbar, son of Aurangzib, 3S5, 3S6 



435 



436 



INDEX 



Akbarnama, 284 

Ala-ad-din Alam Khan, Lodi, 
192, igg, 200 

Ala-ad-din Husain Jahan-soz, 47, 
48 

Ala-ad-din Khalji, 92; murder 
of Firoz, 92; accession, 94; 
conquests in the Deccan, 95, 
96; withstands Mongols, 96, 
97; rebellions suppressed, 98; 
prosperity and vanity, 99; siege 
of Rantambhor, 100; conspir- 
acies, 100, loi; repressive 
measures, 101-108, 146; de- 
fensive measures against Mon- 
gols, 109; reform of army, 
no; tariff of food, in; Dec- 
can campaigns, 113-114, pro- 
sperity andreaction, 115; death, 
115, 131; coinage, 137, 175 

Alam Khan, 199 [Ala-ad-din 
Lodi] 

Alamgir [Aurangzib], 419 

Albari, 70, 77 

Albuquerque, 177, 293 

Ali Kuli Khan-Zaman, 248, 249 

Almeida, Francisco de, 177 
" Louren9o de, 177 

Alptagin founds kingdom of 
Ghazni, 16 

Altamish (Iltutmish), 70; recov- 
ers Hindustan from anarchy, 
72; invested as sultan by ca- 
liph, 72; death, 73; tomb at 
Delhi, 75, 84 

Altuniya, 76 

Amber, 251; princess of, 271 

Amber, Malik, 320, 323, 344, 

345 
Amir, title of king of Ghazni, 36 
Anandpal defeated by Mahmud, 

20 
Anhalwara, 26, 49, 54, 66 
Arabic spoken in Sind, 12 
Arabs, never conquered India, 
4; trade between Persian gulf 
and India, 5; pillaging expe- 
dition to Tana, 5; invasion of 
Sind from Mekran, 6-10; Dai- 
bul besieged by Mohammad 



Kasim, 8; conquest of Multan, 
9; policy of conqueror, 10; 
imperfect subjection of Sind, 
12; foundation of Mansura, 
12; Karmathian ascendancy, 
13; decay of Arab power in 
the province, 13; the Sayyids, 
59, 161 

Arakan, 357, 380 

Archers, 225 

Ariyaruk, governor of Panjab, 

35, 36 
Arjumand Banu, Mumtaz-i- Ma- 
hall, 328 
Armenians, 252, 302 
Army, no, 268, 303, 315, 335, 

350, 3J7, 378, 402 
Arslan Shah of Ghazni, 45 
Art, 29, 32, 40, 370; Christian, 

in India, 273, 274 [Pictures, 

Portraits] 
Artillery, 202, 207-209, 211-214, 

224, 227, 241, 335, 336, 351, 

378 [Sieges] 
Asad-ad-din, 118 
Asaf Jah, 415, 416 
Asaf Khan, 320, 322, 324, 328, 

336, 345 
Asirgarh, 286 
Asjudi, 30 
Askari, son of Babar, 214, 222, 

226, 232 
Asoka pillars, 144 
Atala mosque at Jaunpur, 170, 

171 

Attok, 156 

Aurangzib, 252, 323, 344 ; gov- 
ernor of Deccan, 346 ; cam- 
paigns in Afghanistan, 346, 
347 ; returns to Deccan, 347 ; 
conquers Bidar, 348 ; contest 
for the throne, 350-357 ; en- 
throned, 358 ; character and 
policy, 359-366 ; court, 367- 
375 ; government, 376-379 1 
wars, 380-382 ; Hindu revolt, 
383 ; imposition of poll-tax, 
384 ; Rajput rebellion, 385- 
387 ; Maratha war, 393-407 ; 
portrait in old age, 404 ; lone- 



INDEX 



437 



Aurangzib , — Contin ued 

liness, 405 ; last letters, 407, 
408 ; death, 409 

Avicenna, 30 

Aybek, Kutb-ad-din, first Slave 
King of Delhi, 53, 54, 65, 
note ; conquests in Hindustan, 
66 ; rule, 6S ; buildings, the 
Kutb Minar, 67, 68 ; death, 70 

Azadpur (Ikdala), 144 

A'zani, son of Aurangzib, 385, 
399, 406, 407, 411 



B 



Babar, his race, 193 ; Memoirs, 
193-196 ; portrait, 195 ; early 
career, 197 ; King of Kabul, 
198 ; raids on the Indian fron- 
tier, 199 ; invited by Ala-ad- 
din, 199 ; invasion of 1524, . 
199 ; final invasion of T525, 
200 ; battle of Panipat, 201- 
203 ; distribution of treasure, 
203 ; a partial conquest, 204 ; 
address to discontented troops, 
205 ; war with Rajputs, 206- 

216 ; battle of Kanwaha, 209, 
210 ; storming of Chanderi, 
210 ; forcing the Ganges, 211, 
212 ; at Agra, 212 ; battle of 
the Gogra, 213, 214; state of 
the empire, 215 ; Babar's de- 
scription of Hindustan, 216 ; 
his strength and swimming, 

217 ; death, 217 
Babarids, 197, note 
Badakhshan, 200, 285, 346 
Badaun, 54, 171 

Badauni, 266-269, 272, 273, 279, 

280, 283 
Baghdad, 15 

Bahadur Shah (Bengal), 122 
Bahadur Shah, 411-416 [Mu'az- 

zam] 
Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, 174, 

177, 17S, 223-226 
Bahlol, Lodi, 163, 172, 190 
Bahmanid kings of Deccan, 140, 

178-185 



Bahraich, 150, 166, 169 

Bahram, son of Altamish, 76 

Bahram Shah of Ghazni, 45, 46 

Baihaki, 30, 36, 37, 44 

Bairam Khan, 240-242, 244 

Bajaur, 199 

Baji Ras, 415 

Bakhtiyar, Mohammad, 54, 65, 
66, 68, 70, 84 

Baladhuri, at, 8 

Balaji, 415 

Balban, Slave King of Delhi, 
77 ; early career, 78 ; victories 
over Mongols, 78, 79 ; exile, 
79 ; restoration, 80 ; Vezir, 
with title of Ulugh Khan, 80 ; 
administration, 80 ; king, 81 ; 
stern measures, 81, 82 ; policy, 
82 ; campaign in Bengal, 83- 
86 ; terrible executions, 86 ; 
death, 87, 89 

Ball, Dr. V., 204, 360 

Bandelkhand, 96 

Bankapur, 181, 183 

Baptism of Moghul princes, 299 

Barani, 81, 93, 95, note, 98, loi- 
108, 112, 115, 125, 126 

Barbak of Bengal, 164 

Barha Sayyids, 415 

Barid Shahs, 185 

Baroda, 250 

Batshikan (Idol-breaker), title of 
Mahmud of Ghazni, 21 

Batuta, Ibn-, 119, note, 122, 
note, 126, 127, 131 

Baz Bahadur, 245, 254 

Bell, Jahangir's, 299 

Benares, raid upon, 41 ; con- 
quered by Mohammad Ghori, 

53, 66 ; 213, 242, 349, 383 
Bengal, conquered by Bakhtiyar, 

54, 65, 66, 68, 70 ; 72 ; disaf- 
fected, 83, 84 ; subdued by 
Balban, 85, 86 ; separate king- 
dom, 87; campaign of Firozin, 
140-141 ; opposes Babar, 213 ; 
flotilla, 214 ; invaded by Hu- 
mayun, 228, 229 ; by Akbar, 
239 ; 261, 322 

Bengal, kings of, 164 



43S 



INDEX 



Berar, 179, 184, 185, 285, 286 
Bernier, 290, 328, 340, 357, 364, 

375, 377, 378 

Betel, 104 

Beveridge, Mr. H., 204, note 

Bhagwan Das, raja, 250, 251, 
258 

Bhakkar, 141 

Bhatnir, 156 

Bhira, 19, 199 

Biana, 163, 207 ; Kazi of, con- 
versation with Ala - ad - din, 
105-108 

Bibi Naila, 143 

Bibi raji, 169, 171 

Bidar, 178, 180, 185, 348 

Bihar, 54, 147, 164, 166, 172, 
190, 210, 212, 223, 227 

Bihari Mai, raja, 251 

Bihzad, 274 

Bijapur, 184, 185, 344, 345, 347, 
348, 389, 390, 392-396 

Bikanir, 258 

Bir Afghan, 147 

Birbal, raja, 273, 382, 285 

Biruni, Al- 30 

Blochmann, H., 266, 279 

Bombay, 176, 365 

Brahmanabad, 9 

Brahmans, 8, 10, 17, 22, 26, 149, 

383 
Breastworks, 200 
' Bride ' catapult, 8 
Buddhist kings, 22 
Bughra Khan, son of Balban, 

King of Bengal, 86, 87, 89, 90 
Bukhara, 17 
Burhanpur, 179, 239, 296, 393, 

394 
Bussy, 420 
Buxar (Baksar), 213, 230, 422 



Calcutta, 382 

Caliphs, 7, II, 12, 15, 16, 18, 72, 

137-138, 149 
Calthrops, 157 
Cambay, 5, 174, 225, 250, 295, 

317 



Camels, 8, 351 
Canals of Firoz, 144-146 
Careri, Gemelli, 404, 405 
Caste, as applied to Islam, 62, 

63 

Castro, F. da, 336 

Catapults, 8 

Champanir, 225 

Chand Bibi, 286 

Chand Rai, 25 . 

Chandal Bhor, 25 

Chandel dynasty, 66 

Chanderi, 174, 190, 210 

Chandilla dynasty, 22 

Charbagh, 212 

Charnock, Job, 382 

Chaul, naval battle off, 177 

Chaunsa, 230 

Chauth, 415, 418 

Chess, living, 273 

Chhaju, 92 

Child-marriages, 252, 253 

Chinab, 156 

Chinese art, 274 

Chingiz Kaan, invasion of, 71 

Chin Kulich Khan, 415, 416 

Chitor, conquered by Ala-ad- 
din, 113; tower of victory, 173, 
174; ranas, 206; siege by Gu- 
jarat, 224 ; siege by Akbar, 
254-257; statues at Delhi, 257 

Chittagong, 164, 381 

Chohan horseman, 73 

Chunar, 213, 223, 227-229 

Coins of Mahmud, 18, 27; 
Ghiyas-ad-din, 48; Moham- 
mad Ghori, 55; Yildiz, 65; 
Iwaz, 72; Altamish, 72, 73; 
Raziya, 77; Balban, 73, 83; 
Ibrahim, 94; Ala-ad-din, 95, 
137; Mohammad Taghlak, 
128, 134, 137; Firoz, 150; 
Ghiyas of Malwa, 175; Mah- 
mud of Gujarat, 178; Firoz 
Bahmanid, 182; Sher Shah, 
230; Akbar, 243; Jahangir, 
297; Zodiacal mohrs, 320; 
Nur-Jahan, 317, 320; Shah- 
Jahan, 348; Murad-Bakhsh, 
349; Aurangzib, 379, 400 



INDEX 



439 



Conjeveram, i8o 
Corsi, F., 299, 309 
Cos, 336 

Court at Ghazni, 36-40 
Cror (Karor), 135, 356 
Croris, 267, 268 
Currency, forced, 133-163 

D 

Dahir, raja, 9 ; his daughters, 11 

Daibul, the forerunner of Kara- 
chi, 8 ; besieged by Arabs under 
Mohammad Kasim, 8 ; taken 
by Mohammad Ghori, 49 

Dailamis, 40 

Dalamau, 147, 166 

Dandanakan, battle of, 35 

Daniyal, son of Akbar, 285 

Dar-el-Khilafa, 131 

Dara Shukoh, 323, 349-357 

Darya Khan, 163, 192 

Daulat Khan, 161, 192, 199, 
200 

Daulatabad, made capital of 
India, 130-132 ; 399, 409 [De- 
vagiri] 

Dawar-Bakhsh, 326 

Deccan, conquests of Kafur, 113, 
114 ; divided into four pro- 
vinces, 130 ; under Bahmanids, 
140, 178-185 ; under Moghuls, 
240, 285, 286, 320, 321, 344- 
349, 387-407 

Delhi conquered by Aybek, 53, 
66 ; mosque and Kutb Minar, 
68 ; besieged by rebels, 76, 78 ; 
infested by marauders, 81 ; 
coins, 83, 95 ; attacked by 
Mongols, 96, 97 ; revolt, loi ; 
threatened by Mongols, 109 ; 
new suburbs, 109, 144; mosque 
of Ala-ad-din, no ; described 
by Ibn-Batuta, 131 ; sacked by 
Timur, 158 ; occupied by Ba- 
bar, 203 ; building of New 
Delhi by Shah-Jahan, 340, 341, 
367-376 ; sacked by Nadir, 

417 . , 
Devagiri (Deogir) conquered by 



Ala-ad-din, 96 ; recovered by 

Kafur, 113 ; tribute, 114, 118 ; 

130 [Daulatabad] 
Devarakanda, 183 
Dhakka, 381 
Dhar, 172 
Dholpur, 190, 213 
Diamonds, 203, 204 
Dig Ghazi, 212 
Dilawar Khan of Malwa, 172 
Din-i-Ilahi, 280 
Dinar, gold coin, 19 
Dinar, Malik, 100 
Dipalpur, 109, 139, 156, 200 
Diu, 174, 175, 177 ; naval battle, 

177 ; Portuguese factory, 177 ; 

226 
Diwan-i-Khas, 270 
Doab III, 146, 161, 163, 205, 

206 
Drinking [Wine] 
Dryden's ' Aureng-Zebe,' 342 
Dutch, 294, 310, 315, 316, 331, 

Duties abolished by Akbar, 262 
Dvara-Samudra, conquered by 
Kafur, 114, 137 



E 



East India Company, 294, 295, 

305, 310, 316 
East, King of the, 147, 166-172 
Egyptian navy, 293 
Elephants, 9, 23, 155, 157, 248, 

249, 303-305, 335, 351-354, 

375, 376 
Elichpur, 96, 174, 179 
Elliot and Dowson, 290 
Elphinstone, H. M., 50, 245, 

417 
Erskine, W., 175, 190, 215 
Etawa, 160, 161, 171 



Factories, 302, 331 
Faith, the Divine, 275-282 
Faizi, 269, 272, 2S2, 286 
Fakirs, 313, 346 



^40 



INDEX 



Fal (omen), 150, 157 

Famine, 130 

Farabi, A1-, 30 

Farghana, 197, ig8 

Farrukhi, 30 

Farrukhsiyar, 414, 415 

Fathabad, 144, 156 

Fath-Khan, 143, 150, 151, 154 

Fathpur-Sikri, 253, 265, 270, 
271-278, 281, 286 ' 

Fiefs, 146, 147, 153, 191, 215, 
219, 377-379 

Firdausi, 30, 31 

Firengi artillery, 202, 213, 214 

Firengi-bazar, 381 

Firoz, Bahmanid, 182, 183 

Firoz Shah I, 73 

Firoz Shah II, 91-93 

Firoz III, 138 ; parentage, 139 ; 
character, 139, 140 ; cam- 
paigns in Bengal, 140, 141 ; 
conquest of Thatta, 141 -142, 
and Nagarkot, 142 ; remission 
of agricultural loans, 143 ; 
passion for building, 143-146 ; 
canal-making, 144-146 ; his 
gardens, 146 ; revenue, 146 ; 
fiefs, 147 ; slaves, 147, 148 ; 
intemperance, 148 ; popular- 
ity, 149 ; death, 151 ; tomb, 
145, 158 ; posthumous coins, 
161 ; pilgrimage, 169 

Firozabad, suburb of Delhi, 144, 

154, 159 
Firozabad (Panduah), 144, 164 
Firozi Garden, 36 
Firoz-koh, 46, 48, 49 
Flags, 8, 36, 42 
Food, price of, iii 
* Foreign amirs,' 136, 178 
Forged coinage, 135 
Forty Slaves, the, 76, 82 
Foster, W. H., 307 
Fiihrer, A,, i6g, note 

G 

Gakkars, 20, 49, 54, 55, 162 

Galgala, 404 

Gama, Vasco da, 176 



Gandhara (Sahi) dynasty, 22, 

23 
Ganges, bridged by Babar, 210, 

212 ; battle of the, 231, 232 
Gardens, 36, 146 
Gates, deodar, at Agra, 27 
Gaur [Lakhnauti], 164, 165, 167, 

228 
Ghats, 388, 389 
Ghazi (Victor), 21 
Ghazi-ad-din, 419, 420 
Ghazipur, 206 
Ghaznawids, 44 [Ghazni, Kings 

of] 
Ghazni, 16, note, 21, 27, 29-32, 

36-40, 45-48, 200, 416 
Ghazni, kings of, 16-49 
Ghilzais, 416 

Ghiyas-ad-din ibn Sam, 48 
Ghiyas of Gujarat, 175 
Ghor, dynasty of, 46-56, 227 
Ghuzz Turkmans, 34, 48 
Gogra, battle of the, 213, 214 
Golkonda, 185, 347, 348, 396- 

400 
Govind, Guru, 414 
Grenades, 351 
Gujarat, 26, 141, 147, 219, 223- 

226, 239, 250, 296, 332 
Gujarat, kings of, 174-178, 

179. 
Gumti, 166 

Gun-carriages, 200, 207, 208 
Gunpowder, 336 
Gupta dynasty, 22 
Gwaliar, 26, 54, 66, 70, 160, 171, 

239, 242 



H 



Haidar, Mirza, 232 
Hajjaj, A1-, 7, 8, 11 
Hajji, Khwaja, 113 
Hakim, 239, 255 
Hansi, 43, 53, 66, 78 
Harim, 142, 251, 252, 304 
Haripala Deva, 118 
Hasan Gangu, 140, 178, 179 
Hasan Karlagh in Sind, 72, 
note 



INDEX 



441 



Hasanak, 39 

Haukal, Ibn-, T2 

Hawkins, William, 295-305 

Hazardinari [Kafur] 

Hijra chronology, discontinued; 
restored, 299 

Himu, 236, 238, 240, 241 

Hindal, 222, 229, 232 

Hindu Kings, 17, 19, 20, 22 

Hindus, relations of, with Mus- 
lims, 41, 42, 49, 50, 68, 79, 81, 
104-106, 117, I43> I49> 153. 
162, 269, 328, 383-387 

Hindustani (Urdu), 300 

Hisar Firoza, 144 

Holden, Dr., 283 

Holkar, 416, 418, 421 

Horses, imported, 114, note 

Howitzer, 211 

Hugli, 328, 381, 382 

Humayun, in Babar's cam- 
paigns, 200, 203 ; in Badakh- 
shan, 218 ; character, 218, 219; 
state of his heritage, 219; jeal- 
ousy of his brothers, 220, 221 ; 
vacillating policy, 222 ; defeat 
of Afghans in Bihar, 223 ; 
chivalry at Chitor, 224 ; con- 
quest of Malwa and Gujarat, 
225 ; loss of both, 226 ; con- 
quest of Chunar, 227; invasion 
of Bengal, 228 ; cut off by Sher 
Shah, 229 ; attempt to return 
and rout at Chaunsa, 230, 
231 ; battle of the Ganges, 
231 ; exile, 232; at Kabul, 232; 
return to India, victory at Sir- 
hind, 236 ; death, 237 ; tomb, 

235, 237 
Humayun, son of Mohammad, 

154 
Humayun, Bahmanid, 184, 185 
Hunter, Sir W. W., 26, 262, 

413 
Hunting, 141 
Hurmuz, 5 

Husain, Egyptian admiral, 176 
Husain Jahan-soz, 47, 48 
Husain of Jaunpur, 171, 190 
Hushang of Malwa, 172, 175 



Ibadat-Khana, 270 
Ibn-Batuta [Batuta] 
Ibrahim, son of Firoz II, 94 
Ibrahim of Ghazni, 45 
Ibrahim, Lodi, 191, 192, 201, 

202 
Ibrahim Shah, of Jaunpur, 169- 

171 
Ibrahim Sur, 236 
Idar, 175 

Idols, 10, 25, 26, 114, 119, 149 
Ikbal Khan, 157, 158, 160, 167 
Ikdala, 140, 144 
Ilahi years, 282 
Ilak Khan, 33 
Iltutmish [Altamish] 
Imad Shahs, 184, 185 
Indore, 179 
Indus, 8, 9, 12, 22, 28, 71, 72, 

77, 78, 141, 156 
Infallibility, doctrine of imperial, 

278-280 
' Inglis Khan,' 302 
Islam, brotherhood of, 62, 63 
Islam Shah, 236 
Iwaz, 72, note 



J 



Jagir, 78, 378 

Jahan-Ara, Princess Begum, 342, 

355 
Jahandar, 414 
Jahangir (Salim), 246, 273, 297- 

325, 327 
Jahanpanah, 131, 159 
Janan-soz, 47, 48 
Jai Mai, of Chitor, 254, 256, 

257 
Jaipal, raja of Panjab, defeated 

by Sabuktagin, 17 I by Mah- 

mud, 19 
Jaipur, 251 
Jai Singh, 349. 354 
Jajnagar, 85, 141, 164, 166 
Jalal Khan, 228 
Jalal Shah of Jaunpur, 192 
Jalal-ad-din Khalji [Firoz II] 



442 



INDEX 



Jalal-ad-din, Khwarizm Shah, 

71 
Jalandhar, 162 
Jam of Sind, 141 
James I, 306, 312 
Jammu, 160 

Jannatabad (Lakhnauti), 164 
Jarrett, Col. H. S., 284 
Jasrath, 162 

Jaswant Singh, 350, 354 
Jats, 10, 27, 28, 42, 406 
Jauhar rite, 257 
Jauna [Mohammad Taghlak] 
Jaunpur founded, 144 ; 147, 166, 

168 ; fort, 168 ; 206, 212, 213, 

229, 239, 242 
Jaunpur, Sharki, kings of, 166- 

172 
Jesuits, 273, 299, 300, 309, 328, 

336, 370 
Jesus quoted by Akbar, 286 
Jewels, 19, 21, 26, 38, 114, 313, 

374, 375 
Jhalor, 175 
Jihad, 206, 224 
Jital, 150, note 
Jizya (poll-tax), 215, 252, 384, 

385 
Jodhpur, 385 [Marwar] 
Jumla, Mir, 347, 348, 380 
Junagarh, 250 
Junair, 184 
Jungles cleared, 81 



K 



Kabul, 17, 43, 156, 162, 192, 
193, 198-200, 203, 205, 212, 
217, 220, 232, 236, 239, 240, 
285, 323, 349, 416 

Kachh, 141 

Kafur, Malik, Hazardinari, cam- 
paigns in Deccan, 113, 114 ; 
regency, 116 ; mosque, 182 

Kai-Kubad, 89, 90 

Kakatiya dynasty, 113 

Kalachuri dynasty, 22 

Kalhat, 5 

Kaliani, 348 

Kalinjar, 26, 54, 66, 79, 223, 257 



Kalpi, 54, 170, 174 

Kam-Bakhsh, 406, 408, 411 

Kampila, 163 

Kampila, raja of, 127 

Kamran, 220, 223, 229, 232, 233 

Kamrup, 164 

Kanauj, 22, 24, 25, 53, 154, 160, 

166, 210, 226, 229, 231 
Kandahar, 232, 240, 285, 320, 

321, 346, 403, 416, 418 
Kandapali, 184 
Kandavid, 184 
Kangra (Nagarkot), 21 
Kansuh el-Ghuri, 176 
Kanwaha, battle of, 209, 210, 

211 
Karachi, 8 
Karauna, Caraona, Karawina, 

122, note 
Karman, in Afghanistan, 42 
Karmathians in Sind, 13, 19, 49 
Karra, 96, 147, 166 
Kashmir, 24, 42, 240, 285, 324, 

341 
Kasim Khan, 350 [Mohammad 

Kasim] 
Katehr (Rohilkhand), 161 
Kathiawar, 175, 250 
Kavalavira, 169 
Keene, H. G., 233, 262, 279, 

338, 341 
Kenchens, 375 
Khafi Khan, 245, 365, 392 
Khaibar pass, 19 
Khaldiran, battle, 201, note 
Khalisa lands, iii, 267 
Khaljis, 84, 91; kings of Delhi, 

91-119; 164, 174 
Khandesh, 176, 179, 239, 285, 

286, 393 
Khan-i-Jahan, 142, 150 ; 345 
Khizr Khan, 161, 162, 169 
Khubilai Khan, 133 
Khurasan, 17, 18, 33-35, 43, 65 
Khurram (Shah-Jahan), 320, 321, 

341 
Khusru, amir, 82, 121 
Khusru Khan, 1 17-120 
Khusru Malik, King of Panjab, 

49 



INDEX 



443 



Khusru Shah of Ghazni, 47 
Khusru, son of Jahangir, 321 
Khwabgah, 272 
Khwaja, 38 
Khwaja-i-Jahan, 166 
Khwaja Kalan, 200 
Khwarizm, 54, 66, 71, 72, note 
Kili, battle of, 97 
Kilughari (Shahr-i-Nau), 90, 

109 
Kingship, Indian ideas on, 60-62 
Kiri, fort, 44 
Koh-i-nur, 204, 348 
Koil (Aligarh), 53, 66, 147, 162 
Konkan, 388, 389 
Koran, 80, 208, 360 
Kubacha, governor of Sind, 70- 

72 
Kulbarga,i30,i79, 183-185, 348, 

397 
Kumbho, rana of Chitor, 174 
Kunbhalmir, 258 
Kuraish in Sind, 12 
Kurayyat, 5 
Kutaiba, 7 

Kutb-ad-din [Aybek] 
Kutb-ad-din Mubarak Shah, 

116-118 
Kutb Minar, 67 (cut), 68, 131, 

144 
Kutb Shahs, 185, 397[Golkonda] 
Kntlugh Khwaja, 96 



Laager, 200, 201, note, 207 
Lac (lakh) 135, 356 
Laghman, 17 
Lahore, 26, 40, 46, 47, 54, 71, 

77, 160, 199, 200, 338, 357 
Lakhnauti (Gaur, Jannatabad), 

54, 68, 77, 85, 86, 122, 164 
Lai Darwaza (Ruby Gate) at 

Jaunpur, 171 
Land-assessment, 261-264, 266- 

268 
Land-tax, 261 
Land tenure, loi, 102 
Laval, Pyrard de, 294 
Levees, 334 



Linga of Somnath, 26, note 

Lion combats, 304 

Loans, agricultural, 133, 143 

Lodis, 161, 163 

Lohanis, 192, 227 

Lucknow, battle of, 223, 224, 

239 



M 



Ma'bar, 114; note 

Magadha, 22 

Mahabat Khan, 323, 324, 345 

Maham Anaga, 242, 244, 245 

Maharashtra, 96 

Mahindri, 249 

Mahmud of Ghazni, Governor of 
Khurasan, 17; King of Ghazni, 
17; his zeal for Islam, 18; in- 
vestiture by caliph, 18; the 
Holy War, 18; his sixteen 
campaigns, 18-28; defeat and 
deathof Jaipal, 19; raids upon 
Bhira and Multan, 19, 49; 
battle of the Khaibar, 20; 
conquest of Kangra, 21; the 
Idol-breaker, 21; raids in Hin- 
dustan, 22; conquest of 
Mathura, 24, and Kanauj, 25; 
battle of the Rahib, 25; con- 
quest of Somnath, 26, 27; 
engagement with Jats, 27, 28; 
death of Mahmud, 28; raids 
not conquests, 28; his policy, 
29; support of art and letters, 
29, 30; poets and historians at 
his court, 30; Firdausi, 30, 31; 
endowment of the university 
of Ghazni, 31; adornment of 
the capital, 32; Mahmud's 
empire in Persia, 32; wars with 
the Turks, 33; a conqueror, 
but not an organizer or origin- 
ator, 33; 40, 46, 47 
Mahmud I of Gujarat, 176 
Mahmud II, Bahmanid, 184, 185 
Mahmud Gawan, 184 
Mahmud of Jaunpur, 171 
Mahmud Lodi, 212, 213, 223, 
227 



444 



INDEX 



Mahmud of Malwa, 174 

Mahmud, son of Mohammad, 
154, 157, 158, 160, 161, 169 

Mahoba, 22 

Mahur, 179 

Maimandi, Ahmad Hasan, Vezir, 
36, 38-40, 42 

Makbul Khan-i-Jahan, 142, 143, 
149, 150 

Makhdum-al-Mulk, 275, 282 

Mai Bhatti, raja, 139 

Malabar coast, trade with Per- 
sian Gulf, 5; campaigns on, 
114 

Malik Amber [Amber] 

Malik Ghazi Shahna, 144 

Malik-i-Maidan, 211 

Malika-i-Jahan, 93 

Malwa, 72, 79, 219, 223-226, 

239. 245 
Malwa, kings of, 169, 172-174, 

175, 176, 178 
Mamluks of Egypt, 176 
Man, 150 
Man Singh, 258 
Mandelslo, Albert, 329-336 
Mangalore, 180 
Manghir, 230 
Mangu Kaan, 78 
Mankot, 240, 242 
Manrique, F., 336, 338 
Mansabdars, 251, 267, 268, 303, 

315, 334, 377-379. 4i2 

Mansura, in Sind, 12 

Marathas, 113, 344, 388-407, 
413, 416-421 

Marco Polo, 122 

Markham, Sir Clements, 303 

Marriage portions, 149, 318 

Marwar, 53, 327, 385 

Mas'ud, son of Mahmud of 
Ghazni, 35-38, his court, 36; 
drinking boats, 37; character, 
39, 40; administration of Pan- 
jab, 40-42; storming of Hansi, 
43; defeated by Seljuks, 35, 
44; flight and death, 44 

Mas'ud, grandson of Altamish, 
76, 79 

Mas'ud, Salar, 150, 168 



Mas'udi, A1-, 12 

Masulipatan, 184 

Matchlocks, 200, 209-335, 351 

Mathura, 24, 383 

Maudud of Ghazni, 36 

Medini Rao, 174, 210 

Meds, 10 

Mekka, 232, 233, 244 

Mekran, 6, 8 

Merv, 35, 44 

Mewar, 385 

Mewat, 161, 163 

Middleton, Sir H., 303 

Millennium, Islamic, 283 

Mirat, 66, 159 

Mirzas' revolt, 249, 250 

Moghul, Mughal, Mongol, 197 

Mohammad I, Bahmanid, 180, 

iSi 
Mohammad II, Bahmanid, 1S4 
Mohammad, son of Balban, 83, 

85,87 
Mohammad, son of Firoz, 150, 

151, 154 
Mohammad Ghori (Mu'izz-ad- 
din ibn Sam) at Ghazni, 48 ; 
conquers Sind and Panjab, 49 ; 
battles with Rajputs at Narain, 
51, 53 ; conquest of most of 
Hindustan, 53, 54; invasion 
of Khwarizm, 54 ; death, 55 ; 
his slaves, 59, 64, 65 
Mohammad Hadi, 318 
Mohammad Kasim invades Sind, 
7 ; besieges and storms Daibul, 
8; defeats Hindus at Rawar 
and Brahmanabad, 9 ; takes 
Multan, 9 ; his generous policy, 
10 ; execution, 11 
Mohammad of Malwa, 174 
Mohammad Shah, 414-418 
Mohammad Sultan, 222, 226 
Mohammad ibn Taghlak, prince 
Jauna Ulugh Khan, 121 ; 
early campaigns in Deccan, 
121, 122 ; character and cul- 
ture, 124, 125 ; cruelty, 126, 
127 ; prodigality, 128 ; coin, 
128; innovations, 129; taxa- 
tion, 129 ; oppression, 129 ; 



INDEX 



445 



M ohammad — Contin tied 

transfers capital, 130; palace 
at Delhi, 131 ; forced cur- 
rency, T33-136 ; insurrections, 
136-138 ; death, 138 ; cam- 
paigns in Deccan, 179 
Mohammad Zaman, 222, 223 
Mongols, invasions of, 71, 77" 
81, 92, 96-98, 109, 112, 119 ; 
aspect of, 83 ; settled at Delhi, 

97, 98 

Mosque, first in India, 8 ; at 
Ghanzi, 31, 32, 47 ; Golden, at 
Gaur, 165 ; Atala, etc., at 
Jaunpur, 170, 171 \ at Ma'bar, 
114, note 

Mu'azzam, son of Aurangzib, 
385, 393, 396, 405, 406, 411- 
414 

Mubarak Shah, Kutb-ad-dm, 
116-118 

Mubarak Shah, Sayyid, 163, 169 

Mndkal, 180-183 

Mughalpur, 97, 9^, 112 

Mu'izz-ad-din ibn Sam [Moham- 
mad Ghori] 

Mujahid, Bahmanid, 114, 181, 
182 

Mujtahid, 279 

Multan, 9, 10, 13, 19, 26, 28,49, 
54, 55, 70, 102, 119, 156, 161, 

349 
Mumtaz-i-Mahall, 328, 338, 342 

Murad, son of Akbar, 273, 285 

Murad Bakhsh, 349-356 

Muskets [Matchlocks] 

Muslims, ' new,' 97, 98 

Mustafa, Ottoman gunner, 202, 

207, 213, 214 

MuzafTar Kahn, 261 

Mysore, 180 



N 



Nadir Shah, 416-418 
Nagarkot, 2t, 142, 154, 160 
Najib-ad-daula, 419-421 
Naphtha arrows, 9, 28 ; fires, 

335 
Narain, two battles of, 51-53 



Nazbada, battle of the, 350 
Nasir-ad-din, son of Altamish, 

77, 80, 81 
Nasir-ad-din (Bengal), 122 
Nasrat Shah, son of Fath Khan, 

154, 160 
Nautch, 375 
Nawab-vezir, 418-422 
Niyaltagin, governor of Panjab, 

40-42 
Nizam Shahs, 184, 185, 344, 345 
Nizam of Haidarabad, 415 
Nizam-ad-din, vezir, 90, 91 
Nizam-ad-din, 251 
Nizam- al-mulk, 33 
Nizami, Hasan, 68 
Nur-Jahan (Nur-Mahall), 298, 

302, 317-326 



O 



Oman, C., 201 
Oman, trade of, 5 
Omar, Shihab-ad-din, 116 
Omayyad caliphs, 7, 11, 12, 15 
Omrahs, 377 [Mansabdars] 
Opium, 217, 219, 226, 305 
Orisa, 164, 172, 180, 184, 239 
Ottoman artillery, 241, 250 
Oudh, 147, 166, 418, 420 
Ovington, 365 
Oxenden, Sir George, 390 



Pachisi court, 272 

Padmavati, 141 

Painting, 149, 273-275, 299, 312, 

336, 371, 372 
Pala dynasty, 22 
Panduah, I44, 164 
Panipat, Akbar's victory at, 241 ; 

Marathas routed at, 420-422 
Panipat, battle, 1526, 200-203 
Panipat, plain of, 51, 156 
Panjab, 35, 40-43, 46, 47, 7i, 

236, 239, 414 
Pantheists, 269, 279, 282 
Parganas, 266 
Parviz, 322, 345 



446 



IISTDEX 



Parwanis, 117- 120 

Patans, 296 

Patiali, 163 

Patna, 315 

Persia, 232, 251, 416-421 ; Per- 
sian Gulf trade, 5 ; Persian 
influence on Arabs, 15, 16 ; 
Persian language, 264-266, 300 

Peshawar, 19, 49 

Peshwas, 415-421 

Pictures [Painting] 

Pilaji Gaikwar,4i6 

Pilgrims' tax abolished, 252 

Pineiro, Padre, 296 

Pir Mohammad, 156, 157 

Pirates, 380-382 

Poll-tax Gizya), 10, 252, 384, 385 

Polo, 40, 70 

Pontoon, 212 

Poona, 389, 390 

Portraits [Painting] 

Portuguese, 176-178, 226, 250, 
290, 292-296, 300, 302, 308, 
310, 328, 357, 380-382 

Presents, 296, 300, 302, 334 

Prices, 150, note 

Prithwi Raja, 50, 52, 53 

Pyramids of heads, 112, 249 

Pyrard de Laval, 294 



Queens, Muslim, 73-76 
R 

Rahib, battle of the, 25 

Raichur Doab, 180, 182 

Rajamandari, 184 

Rajputs, 20, 50-53, 174, 206, 207, 
209, 210, 219, 223, 224, 236, 
239, 241, 251, 253-258, 323, 

350-354, 385-387 
Ramachandra, 169 
Rama Deva, 113, 114, 118 
Ramaganga River, 25 
Ramessar, 114, note 
Ramgir, 179 
Ram Singh, 353 
Rantambhor, 66, 79, lOO, 113, 

174, 257 



Rantelas, 353 

Ratagarh, 168 

Rathor dynasty, 53 ; 385 

Rawar, 9 

Raziya, Queen, 73-76 

Rents, 262-264 

Revenue, 215, 262, 303, 334 

Rihan, renegade Hindu eunuch, 

79 
Rockets, 351 
Roe, Sir Thomas, 305-316, 321, 

322, 327 
Rohillas, 418-421 
Rohtak, 161 
Rohtas, 227-229 
Rukayya, 251 
Rumi Khan, Ottoman gunner, 

224, 227 
Rumi laager, 183 
Rupar, 162 
Rupee, 315, 356 



Sabat (covered way), 255 

Sabuktagin, King of Ghazni, 17 

Sa'd-Allah, 328, 329 

Sa'di, 31, 74 

Safdar Jang, 418-422 

Sahi dynasty of Gandhara, 22, 

23 
Sahu, 413 
Salim Chishti, 271 
Salim (Jahangir), 271, 286, 288 
Salima, 251 
Salimgarh, 356 
Salsette, 176 
Samana, 85, 109, 154 
Samanid Kingdom, 16, 17, 30 
Samarkand, 16, 156, 160, 198 
Sambhaji, 393, 400, 401 
Sambhal, 163, 171, 206 
Samma Jam, 141 
Samugarh, battle, 351-354 
Sandila, 147, 166 
Sandip, 381 

Sanga, rana of Chitor, 206, 210 
Sanjar, Seljuk, Sultan, 45 
Sanskrit studied by Muslims, 30, 

278 



INDEX 



447 



Sapera, 5 

Sappers, 255, 256 [Sieges] 

Sarwar, Khwaja-i-Jahan, 166, 

169 
Satgaon, 164 
Satnamis, 384 
Satpura mountains, 174 
Sattara, 403 

Sayyid dynasty, 161, 169, 190 
Sayyids, 59, 415 
Seljuks, 34, 43-45, 64 
Sewell, R., 183, note 
Shah-Alam, 420, 422 
Shah-Jahan, 308, 320, 321-329 ; 

court, 334; builds Taj at Agra, 

and founds New Delhi, 338- 

341 ; effeminate old age, 342 ; 

Deccan wars, 345 ; deposed by 

Aurangzib, 355 ; captivity and 

death, 355 
Shahjahanabad (New Delhi), 

340, 341, 367-376 
Shahji Bhosla, 389 
Shah-Nama, 30, 31, 39 
Shahr-i-nau (Kilughari), 90, 109 
Shahriyar, 322, 324 
Shaitanpur, 281 
Sharki maliks of Jaunpur, 116- 

172 
Sharwa, 25 
Shayista Khan, 381 
Sher Khan, of Panjab, 80, 82 
Sher Khan (Shah), 213, 223, 226, 

227-236, 261, 262 
Shibboleth, 154 
Shihab- ad-din, 116 
Shiraz, Kazi, 40, 41 
Shuja' Shah, 349, 357, 358 
Shuja'-ad-daula, 420-422 
Sialkot, 49 
Siege machines, 8 
Sieges : Daibul, 8; Somnath, 27; 

Hansi, 43 ; Chitor, 255-257 ; 

Bijapur, 396 ; Golkonda, 397- 

.399 
Sikandar (Humayun), 154 
Sikandar Khan, 147 
Sikandar, Lodi, 190 
Sikandar Sur, 236, 240 
Sikandra, 287 



Sikhs, 406, 414 

Sind, conquered by Arabs, 6-13 ; 
by Mohammad Ghori, 49 ; Ku- 
bacha, 70-72 ; Salal-ad-din, 
71, 72 ; Mohammad Taghlak 
invades, 138-139, and Firoz, 
141, 142 ; 213 

Sindhia, 416, 418, 42I 

Sikri, 207, 271 

Sipahsalar (marshal), 66 

Sipihr Shukoh, 352 

Sir, 150, note 

Siraf, 5 

Sirhind, 52, 162 ; battle, 236, 

239 
Siri, 109, 114, 131, 157 
Sirsuti, 53, 156 
Sistan, 17 
Siva, bull of, 73 
Sivaji, 389-393 
Siwalik hills, 160 
Slave dynasties, 64, 65 
Slave Kings of Delhi, 53, 66- 

88 
Slaves, 19, 25, 147, 148, 151- 

154 ; price of, 112, 117 
Slings, Stone-, 8 
Smith, E. W., 169, 274 
Solankhpal, raja, 66 
Solar year, 282, 299 
Soldiers, pay of, no [Army] 
Somnath, temple and linga, 

26 
Sonargaon, 164 
Sovereignty, Indian ideas on, 

60-62 
Spies, 102-104 
Statues, 299, 312 [Art] 
Stephens, Morse, 177, note 
Sufiism, 269 

Sultanpur (Warangal), 137 
Sumras of Thatta, 138 
Sun-worship, 280, 282 
Sur, chiefs of, 46 [Ghor], 

227 
Surat, 174, 249, 250, 299, 302, 

307-310, 317, 330, 331, 349, 

365, 390, 392 
Sutanati, 382 
Suttee, 252 



448 



INDEX 



Tabakat-i-Akbari, 224, 251, 257 
Taghlak, Ghazi Malik, 113, irg- 

122 
Taghlak II, 151 
Taghlakabad, 131, 136 ; fort, 

123 
Taghlakpur (Tirhuti), 137 
Tahmasp, Shah, 232 
Taj-al-mulk, 162 
Taj-Mahall, 328, 338 
Tanjore, 392, 400 
Tardi Beg, 241 

Taria, early Arab raid upon, 5 
Tariff of Ala-ad-din, iii, 117 
Tarikh-i-Alfi, 254, 257, 283 
Tarikh-i-Sher-Shahi, 236 
Tatar Khan, 148 
Tavernier, 329, 360 
Taxation, 132, 143, 149, 261, 

267, 315 
Telingana, subdued by Kafur, 

113; tributary to Delhi, 130; 

180, 184 
Temples, 10, 24, 26, 68 
Terry, Rev. E., 317 
Thanesar, 23, 248 
Thatta, 138, 141, 142 
Thomas, E., 77, 133, 136, 163 
Throne, Peacock, 417 
Thugs, 92 

Tilak, Hindu general, 41, 42 
Tiles, gilt, 131 
Timur (Tamerlane) in India, 1 54- 

160 
Timur's successors, 197 
Tipara, 164 
Tirhut, 166, 190 
Tobacco, 283, 298 
Todar Mai, 258, 260-267 
Token currency, 133-136 
Tomara dynasty, 22, 24, 53 
Tombs, pilgrimage to, 270, 271 
Tories or Highwaymen, 332 
Torture, 107, 118, 126, 127, 267 
Townsend, Mr. Meredith, 62, 

note 
Trade, 174-176 
Treasure, 203, 303, 333 



Tripods, 207, 208 

Tughril Bey, 35 

Tughril, rebel in Bengal, 84-87 

Tulughma manoeuvre, 201, 209 

Turkmans, 34, 240 

Turks, the real Muslim conquer- 
ors of India, 14 ; their migra- 
tions, 14-16 ; Turkish lan- 
guage, 296, 300 



U 



Uchh, siege of, 79 

Udaipur, rana of, 254, 258, 385, 

386 
Udaipuri Bai, 409, 409 
Udai Singh, rana of Mewar, 254, 

258 
Ujjayn, 72, 172 
Ulugh Khan [Balban] 
Unsuri, 30 
Urdu, 266 
Ustad Ali, gunner, 202, 207, 209, 

212-214 
Utbi, 30 
Uzbegs, 198, 207, 248, 346, 351 



V 



Valle, Pietro della, 317, 318, 

321 
Vedanta philosophy, 278 
Verroneo Geronimo, 338 
Vezir, 141-143, 162, 184 
Vezirs, 33, 36-40, 80, 90, 91 
Vijayanagar, king of, 179-182 
Vikramajit, raja, 203, 240 
Virgin, Blessed, representation 

of, 273, 304 

W 

Wagons, laager of, 200, 201, 

note 
Warangal, subdued by Kafur, 

113 ; tribute, 114, 137; 179, 

180 
Wassaf, 114, note; 122, note 
Waste lands reclaimed, 146 
Water-rate, 146 



INDEX 



449 



Weighing the Moghul, 282, 313, 

314, 341, 375 
Wine, 36, 37, 40, 43 ; repression 
of drinking, 103, 107 ; 116, 
148, 208, 281, 285, 297, 298, 
305, 313 



Yadava dynasty, 113 
Yaklakhi, 118 



Yildiz, 65, 70, 71 
Yogis, 278, 280 



Zafar, son of Firoz, 154 
Zafar Khan of Gujarat, 175 
Zafarabad (Ratagarh), 147, 166, 

168 
Zamindars, 215 
Zodiacal mohrs, 319, 320 




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